Alternative ergosterol biosynthetic pathways confer antifungal drug resistance in the human pathogens within the Mucor species complex.

ABSTRACT: Mucormycoses are emerging fungal infections caused by a variety of heterogeneous species within the Mucorales order. Among the Mucor species complex, Mucor circinelloides is the most frequently isolated pathogen in mucormycosis patients and despite its clinical significance, there is an absence of established genome manipulation techniques to conduct molecular pathogenesis studies. In this study, we generated a spontaneous uracil auxotrophic strain and developed a genetic transformation procedure to analyze molecular mechanisms conferring antifungal drug resistance. With this new model, phenotypic analyses of gene deletion mutants were conducted to define Erg3 and Erg6a as key biosynthetic enzymes in the M. circinelloides ergosterol pathway. Erg3 is a C-5 sterol desatu

SUBMITTER: Navarro-Mendoza MI 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11323496 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature