Eca1, a sarcoplasmic/endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+-ATPase, is involved in stress tolerance and virulence in Cryptococcus neoformans.

ABSTRACT: The basidiomycetous fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans is adapted to survive challenges in the soil and environment and within the unique setting of the mammalian host. A C. neoformans mutant was isolated with enhanced virulence in a soil amoeba model that nevertheless exhibits dramatically reduced growth at mammalian body temperature (37 degrees C). This mutant phenotype results from an insertion in the ECA1 gene, which encodes a sarcoplasmic/endoplasmic reticulum (ER) Ca2+-ATPase (SERCA)-type calcium pump. Infection in murine macrophages, amoebae (Acanthamoeba castellanii), nematodes (Caenorhabditis elegans), and wax moth (Galleria mellonella) larvae revealed that the eca1 mutants are virulent or hypervirulent at permissive growth temperatures but attenuated at 37 degrees C. Deletio

SUBMITTER: Fan W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1932933 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature