Project description:In the present study, we investigated the pathogenicity of infection with Malassezia furfur using Caenorhabditis elegans as a model animal. The lifespan of the adult C. elegans infeted with Malassezia furfur was significantly longer than that of uninfected animals (control). Transcriptional profiling comparing infected- and uninfected animals suggested that genes related to the innate immunity were upregulated by infection with Malassezia furfur.
Project description:Malassezia species are lipophilic and lipid dependent yeasts belonging to the human and animal microbiota. Typically, they are isolated from regions rich in sebaceous glands. They have been associated with dermatological diseases such as seborrheic dermatitis, tinea versicolor, atopic dermatitis, and folliculitis. Genome sequences of Malassezia globosa, Malassezia sympodialis, and Malassezia pachydermatis lack genes related to fatty acid synthesis. Here, lipid synthesis pathways of M. furfur, M. pachydermatis, M. globosa, M. sympodialis and an atypical variant of M. furfur were reconstructed using genome data and Constraints Based Reconstruction and Analysis. The metabolic reconstruction allowed us to predict variation in the fluxes of each reaction over the network to satisfy the biomass objective function. Proteomic profiling improved and validated the models through data integration. Results suggest that several mechanisms including steroid and butanoate metabolism explain the yeast’s growth under different lipid conditions. Flux differences were observed in production of riboflavin in M. furfur and the biosynthesis of glycerolipids in the atypical variant of M. furfur and Malassezia sympodialis.
Project description:The skin commensal yeast Malassezia is associated with several skin disorders. To establish a reference resource, we sought to determine the complete genome sequence of Malassezia sympodialis and identify its protein-coding genes. A novel genome annotation workflow combining RNA sequencing, proteomics, and manual curation was developed to determine gene structures with high accuracy.
