Aspergillus fumigatus protein phosphatase PpzA is involved in iron assimilation, secondary metabolite production, and virulence
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ABSTRACT:
ORGANISM(S): Aspergillus fumigatus
PROVIDER: GSE97495 | GEO | 2018/03/19
REPOSITORIES: GEO
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Project description:Iron is an essential cofactor for a wide range of cellular processes. Previous studies have shown that siderophore-mediated uptake and intracellular handling of iron are crucial for virulence of Aspergillus fumigatus. Here we show that the bzip-type transcription factor HapX plays a crucial role in the transcriptional remodeling required for adaption to iron starvation in this opportunistic fungal pathogen. HapX was found to be interconnected in a negative feed-back loop with the previously identified iron regulator SreA: SreA repressed expression of hapX during iron sufficiency and HapX repressed sreA during iron starvation. Genome-wide transcriptional profiling and analysis of selected metabolites (protophorphyrine IX, siderophores and amino acids) indicated extensive metabolic remodeling in response to iron starvation. HapX was found to participate in both, repression and activation of genes during iron starvation. HapX was in particular required for repression of iron-dependent and mitochondrial-localized activities including respiration, TCA cycle, amino acid metabolism, iron-sulfur-cluster biosynthesis and heme biosynthesis. Pathways positively affected by HapX included production of siderophores and the ribotoxin and major allergen AspF1. Analysis of the free amino acid pool revealed HapX-dependent coordination of the production of siderophores with the supply of its precursor ornithine. Consistent with the hapX expression pattern, HapX-deficiency was deleterious with respect to growth rate and conidiation during iron depleted but not iron-replete conditions. HapX-deficiency caused significant attenuation of virulence in a murine model aspergillosis underlining that A. fumigatus faces iron starvation in the host and that the HapX-dependent metabolic reprogramming is therefore crucial for virulence. A. fumigatus 293 and hapX mutants were grown in the presence and absence of iron and in cultures shifted from no iron to iron-containing conditions after 1 h incubation. Hybridizations were performed with biological replicates for wt vs hapX +/- iron. For the iron-shift experiments, there were biological replicates for wt in both conditions and for hapX in -iron but there was only a single biological sample for hapX iron-shift sample. All hybs were performed with flip-dye pairs.
2010-07-01 | E-GEOD-22052 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:Iron is an essential cofactor for a wide range of cellular processes. Previous studies have shown that siderophore-mediated uptake and intracellular handling of iron are crucial for virulence of Aspergillus fumigatus. Here we show that the bzip-type transcription factor HapX plays a crucial role in the transcriptional remodeling required for adaption to iron starvation in this opportunistic fungal pathogen. HapX was found to be interconnected in a negative feed-back loop with the previously identified iron regulator SreA: SreA repressed expression of hapX during iron sufficiency and HapX repressed sreA during iron starvation. Genome-wide transcriptional profiling and analysis of selected metabolites (protophorphyrine IX, siderophores and amino acids) indicated extensive metabolic remodeling in response to iron starvation. HapX was found to participate in both, repression and activation of genes during iron starvation. HapX was in particular required for repression of iron-dependent and mitochondrial-localized activities including respiration, TCA cycle, amino acid metabolism, iron-sulfur-cluster biosynthesis and heme biosynthesis. Pathways positively affected by HapX included production of siderophores and the ribotoxin and major allergen AspF1. Analysis of the free amino acid pool revealed HapX-dependent coordination of the production of siderophores with the supply of its precursor ornithine. Consistent with the hapX expression pattern, HapX-deficiency was deleterious with respect to growth rate and conidiation during iron depleted but not iron-replete conditions. HapX-deficiency caused significant attenuation of virulence in a murine model aspergillosis underlining that A. fumigatus faces iron starvation in the host and that the HapX-dependent metabolic reprogramming is therefore crucial for virulence.
2010-07-01 | GSE22052 | GEO
Project description:Objective: We analyzed changes in A. fumigatus gene expression profile at various stages of an in vitro model of aspergillosis to study the adaptation of A. fumigatus to the blood environment. Results: Most of virulence factors described to be involved in aspergillosis were not activated during the blood phase. We found three active processes to be activated in the later phase that may help to the adaptation: Iron homeostasis, a partial secondary metabolite cluster and the formation of detoxification enzymes. Conclusions: We propose that A. fumigatus is unable to grow in blood and it requires a metabolic change that allows the organism to shut down all uptake and energy-consume mechanisms, resulting in a resting mycelial stage.
2015-11-24 | GSE70227 | GEO
Project description:Objective: We analyzed changes in A. fumigatus gene expression profile at various stages of an in vitro model of aspergillosis to study the adaptation of A. fumigatus to the blood environment. Results: Most of virulence factors described to be involved in aspergillosis were not activated during the blood phase. We found three active processes to be activated in the later phase that may help to the adaptation: Iron homeostasis, a partial secondary metabolite cluster and the formation of detoxification enzymes. Conclusions: We propose that A. fumigatus is unable to grow in blood and it requires a metabolic change that allows the organism to shut down all uptake and energy-consume mechanisms, resulting in a resting mycelial stage. We performed gene expression profile by sequencing mRNA of A. fumigatus that were growm under two conditions, Minimal Medium (M) and human blood (B), and at different times: before placing the fungus in the final medium (pre), at 30' and at 180', with 2 biological replicates per condition.
2015-11-24 | E-GEOD-70227 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:The airborne fungus Aspergillus fumigatus causes opportunistic infections in humans with high mortality rates in immunocompromised patients. Previous work established that the bZIP transcription factor HapX is essential for virulence via adaptation to iron limitation by repressing iron-consuming pathways and activating iron acquisition mechanisms, such as the high-affinity siderophore-assisted iron uptake system. Moreover, HapX was shown to be essential for transcriptional activation of vacuolar iron storage and iron-dependent pathways in response to iron availability. Here, we demonstrate that HapX has a very short half-life during iron starvation, which is further decreased in response to iron, while siderophore biosynthetic enzymes are very stable. Immunoprecipitation experiments followed by LC-MS/MS analysis identified Fbx22 and SumO as HapX interactors and, in agreement, HapX post-translational modifications including ubiquitination of lysine161, sumoylation of lysine242 and phosphorylation of threonine319. All three modifications were enriched in the immediate adaptation from iron-limiting to iron-replete conditions. Interfering with these post-translational modifications, either by point mutations or by inactivation, of Fbx22 or SumO, altered HapX degradation, heme biosynthesis and iron resistance to different extents. Consistent with the need to regulate HapX protein levels, overexpression of hapX caused significant growth defects under iron sufficiency. Taken together, our results indicate that post-translational regulation of HapX is important to control iron homeostasis in A. fumigatus.
2021-07-20 | PXD026889 | Pride
Project description:The Aspergillus fumigatus sterol regulatory element binding protein (SREBP) SrbA belongs to the basic Helix-Loop-Helix (bHLH) family of transcription factors and is crucial for antifungal drug resistance and virulence. The latter phenotype is especially striking, as loss of SrbA results in complete loss of virulence in murine models of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA). How fungal SREBPs mediate fungal virulence is unknown, though it has been suggested that lack of growth in hypoxic conditions accounts for the attenuated virulence. To further understand the role of SrbA in fungal infection site pathobiology, chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by massively parallel DNA sequencing (ChIP-seq) was used to identify genes under direct SrbA transcriptional regulation in hypoxia. These results confirmed the direct regulation of ergosterol biosynthesis and iron uptake by SrbA in hypoxia and revealed new roles for SrbA in nitrate assimilation and heme biosynthesis. Moreover, functional characterization of an SrbA target gene with sequence similarity to SrbA identified a new transcriptional regulator of the fungal hypoxia response and virulence, SrbB. SrbB co-regulates genes involved in heme biosynthesis and demethylation of C4 sterols with SrbA in hypoxic conditions. However, SrbB also has regulatory functions independent of SrbA including regulation of carbohydrate metabolism. Loss of SrbB markedly attenuates A. fumigatus virulence, and loss of both SREBPs further reduces in vivo fungal growth. These data suggest that both A. fumigatus SREBPs are critical for hypoxia adaptation and virulence and reveals new insights into SREBPM-bM-^@M-^Ys complex role in infection site adaptation and fungal virulence. 4 hour and 12 hour ChIP experiments were completed. Input control samples for each set were collected.
2014-10-03 | E-GEOD-61974 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:Aspergillus fumigatus has to cope with a combination of several stress types in the human body, and the interplay between the different stress responses can significantly influence the survival of this human pathogen during the invasion of the host organism. In this study, we examined how the H2O2 induced oxidative stress response depends on iron availability. Surprisingly, the applied H2O2 treatment, which induced only a negligible stress response in iron fed cultures, deleteriously affected the fungus under iron starvation and the majority of observed transcriptome-level stress responses were characteristic only for the combined H2O2-iron starvation stress treatments. Our data suggest that the survival of the fungus highly depended on fragile balances, e.g. between siderophore and ergosterol productions or between economization on iron and production of essential iron containing proteins. The applied stress conditions also affected several processes related to virulence or drug susceptibility including secondary metabolism, zinc acquisition or antifungal drug transport. Our data clearly demonstrate that studying stress responses under single stress treatments is not sufficient at all to understand how fungal pathogens survive in a complex habitat and support the view that the evolutionary success of A. fumigatus as an opportunistic human pathogen is not the mere consequence of the productions of certain virulence factors. Importantly, this fungal pathogen is able to mount and coordinate high-complexity and outstandingly efficient responses to multiple and superpositioning stresses in various harsh habitats like the human body.
2018-01-01 | GSE94818 | GEO
Project description:The Aspergillus fumigatus sterol regulatory element binding protein (SREBP) SrbA belongs to the basic Helix-Loop-Helix (bHLH) family of transcription factors and is crucial for antifungal drug resistance and virulence. The latter phenotype is especially striking, as loss of SrbA results in complete loss of virulence in murine models of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA). How fungal SREBPs mediate fungal virulence is unknown, though it has been suggested that lack of growth in hypoxic conditions accounts for the attenuated virulence. To further understand the role of SrbA in fungal infection site pathobiology, chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by massively parallel DNA sequencing (ChIP-seq) was used to identify genes under direct SrbA transcriptional regulation in hypoxia. These results confirmed the direct regulation of ergosterol biosynthesis and iron uptake by SrbA in hypoxia and revealed new roles for SrbA in nitrate assimilation and heme biosynthesis. Moreover, functional characterization of an SrbA target gene with sequence similarity to SrbA identified a new transcriptional regulator of the fungal hypoxia response and virulence, SrbB. SrbB co-regulates genes involved in heme biosynthesis and demethylation of C4 sterols with SrbA in hypoxic conditions. However, SrbB also has regulatory functions independent of SrbA including regulation of carbohydrate metabolism. Loss of SrbB markedly attenuates A. fumigatus virulence, and loss of both SREBPs further reduces in vivo fungal growth. These data suggest that both A. fumigatus SREBPs are critical for hypoxia adaptation and virulence and reveals new insights into SREBP’s complex role in infection site adaptation and fungal virulence.
2014-10-03 | GSE61974 | GEO
Project description:The gene PA2384 in Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1, annotated originally as unknown function, has been previously shown to be dramatically responsive to iron limitation. In the present study, PA2384 is shown by bioinformatics analysis to have a weak similarity to the N-termini DNA binding domain of fur, a well-known ferric uptake regulator. To experimentally investigate the function of PA2384 P. aeruginosa PAO1 recombinant (pUCP20::PA2384) overexpressing PA2384 and PA2384 knock-out mutant PAO1-23844 are constructed and studied. Physiological characterization in a carefully controlled cultivation system shows that the knockout strain needed a longer lag phase to grow and exhibited a significantly reduced production speed of siderophore (pyoverdine and pyochelin) in the stationary phase. Genome-scale transcriptional profiles at different growth stages are compared between the wild type and âPA2384 mutant grown under iron-limiting conditions. The expression of more than 350 genes is affected. Among them, seventy-one genes involved in iron uptake are significantly induced by PA2384. 102 quorum sensing (QS) dependent genes exhibited differential transcription. They include genes related to the biosynthesis of some important virulence factors such as pyocyanin, rhamnolipids and hydrogen cyanide. Transcription of genes responsible for the synthesis of Pseudomonas Quinolone Signal (PQS) is greatly advanced by the knockout of PA2384. We postulate that PA2384 affects QS via PQS. Furthermore, the knockout of PA2384 also results in altered expression of genes involved in electron transfer, central metabolism, phosphorus starvation and translation. It implies that PA2384 may affect more basic physiology than only respond to iron uptake and is a versatile global regulator in P. aeruginosa under iron starvation. Experiment Overall Design: mutant and wilde type biological replicates were analyzed at 3 timepoints
2007-09-21 | E-GEOD-2885 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:The gene PA2384 in Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1, annotated originally as unknown function, has been previously shown to be dramatically responsive to iron limitation. In the present study, PA2384 is shown by bioinformatics analysis to have a weak similarity to the N-termini DNA binding domain of fur, a well-known ferric uptake regulator. To experimentally investigate the function of PA2384 P. aeruginosa PAO1 recombinant (pUCP20::PA2384) overexpressing PA2384 and PA2384 knock-out mutant PAO1-23844 are constructed and studied. Physiological characterization in a carefully controlled cultivation system shows that the knockout strain needed a longer lag phase to grow and exhibited a significantly reduced production speed of siderophore (pyoverdine and pyochelin) in the stationary phase. Genome-scale transcriptional profiles at different growth stages are compared between the wild type and ∆PA2384 mutant grown under iron-limiting conditions. The expression of more than 350 genes is affected. Among them, seventy-one genes involved in iron uptake are significantly induced by PA2384. 102 quorum sensing (QS) dependent genes exhibited differential transcription. They include genes related to the biosynthesis of some important virulence factors such as pyocyanin, rhamnolipids and hydrogen cyanide. Transcription of genes responsible for the synthesis of Pseudomonas Quinolone Signal (PQS) is greatly advanced by the knockout of PA2384. We postulate that PA2384 affects QS via PQS. Furthermore, the knockout of PA2384 also results in altered expression of genes involved in electron transfer, central metabolism, phosphorus starvation and translation. It implies that PA2384 may affect more basic physiology than only respond to iron uptake and is a versatile global regulator in P. aeruginosa under iron starvation. Keywords: iron starvation, quorum sensing, time course
2005-09-07 | GSE2885 | GEO