Dataset Information

Effect of Replicative Aging on Cryptococcus neoformans

ABSTRACT: Cryptococcus neoformans (Cn) is an opportunistic fungal microorganism that causes life-threatening meningoencephalitis. During the infection, the microbial population is heterogeneously composed of cells with varying generational ages, with older cells accumulating during chronic infections. This is attributed to their enhanced resistance to phagocytic killing and tolerance of antifungals like fluconazole (FLC). Using RNA-seq, we investigated how transcriptomic changes in different aspects of metabolism contribute to age-associated FLC tolerance in Cn.

ORGANISM(S): Cryptococcus neoformans

PROVIDER: GSE260902 | GEO | 2024/03/06

REPOSITORIES: GEO

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:Fungal infections are a serious health problem in clinics especially in the immune-compromised patient. Disease ranges from widespread superficial infections like vulvovaginal infections to life-threatening systemic candidiasis. Especially for systemic mycoses only a limited arsenal of antifungals is available. The most commonly used classes of antifungal compounds used include azoles, polyenes and echinocandines. Due to emerging resistance to standard therapy and significant side effects and high costs for several antifungals.,there is a medical need for new antifungals in the clinic and general practice. In order to expand the arsenal of compounds with antifungal activities we previously screened a compound library, using a new type of activity-selectivity (AS) assay analysing both the antifungal activity and the compatibility with human cells at the same time. One compound, ((S)-2-(1-aminoisobutyl)-1-(3-chlorobenzyl) benzimidazole (EMC120B12)), showed high antifungal activity against several species of pathogenic yeasts including C. glabrata and C. krusei, species which are highly refractory to antifungals, especially to the commonly used azoles. Here we could show by transcriptional profiling and sterol analysis that the target of this new antifungal compound is the ergosterol pathway. The effects of EMC120B12 on sterol biosynthesis mimic those of fluconazole, strongly indicating that EMC120B12 also targets ERG11 like the azols. But not only the marker sterol 14 methylergosta 8,24(28) dien 3β,6α diol accumulated in C. krusei under EMC120B12 treatment, but also hitherto unknown related sterols. The novel sterols have a 3β,6α diol structure. Furthermore, this is the first time that a benzimidazole structure has been shown to result in a block of the sterol pathway by accumulating marker sterols connected to ERG11 inactivation. In total, three biological replicates were performed. All experiments were performed as dye swaps. Thus, in total 18 arrays have been hybridzed. Hybridization experiments included an untreated reference sample and a sample of cells treated with either ((1S)-1-[1-(3-chlorobenzyl)-1H-benzimidazol-2-yl]-2-methylpropyl-amine) (EMC120B12), Fluconazole or Nocodazole. The array included one technical replicate of each probe.

Dataset Information

Effect of Replicative Aging on Cryptococcus neoformans

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure