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Publications (51)
Malaria control demands the development of a wide range of complementary strategies. We describe the properties of a naturally occurring, non-genetically modified symbiotic bacterium, Delftia tsuruhatensis TC1, which was isolated from mosquitoes incapable of sustaining the development of Plasmodium falciparum parasites. D. tsuruhatensis TC1 inhibit...
The mosquito larval midgut is responsible for acquiring and storing most of the nutrients that will sustain the events of metamorphosis and the insect’s adult life. Despite its importance, the basic biology of this larval organ is poorly understood. To help fill this gap, we carried out a comparative morphophysiological investigation of three larva...
Malaria is among the deadliest infectious diseases, and Plasmodium , the causative agent, needs to complete a complex development cycle in its vector mosquito for transmission to occur. Two promising strategies to curb transmission are transgenesis, consisting of genetically engineering mosquitoes to express antimalarial effector molecules, and par...
In mammals, the serine protease plasmin degrades extracellular proteins during blood clot removal, tissue remodeling, and cell migration. The zymogen plasminogen is activated into plasmin by two serine proteases: tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA) and urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA), a process regulated by plasminogen activator inhi...
The stagnation of our fight against malaria in recent years, mainly due to the development of mosquito insecticide resistance, argues for the urgent development of new weapons. The dramatic evolution of molecular tools in the last few decades led to a better understanding of parasite–mosquito interactions and coalesced in the development of novel t...
Malaria is among the deadliest infectious diseases and Plasmodium , the causative agent, needs to complete a complex development cycle in its vector mosquito for transmission to occur. Two promising strategies to curb transmission are transgenesis, consisting of genetically engineering mosquitoes to express anti-malarial effector molecules and para...
The stalling global progress in the fight against malaria prompts the urgent need to develop new intervention strategies. Whilst engineered symbiotic bacteria have been shown to confer mosquito resistance to parasite infection, a major challenge for field implementation is to address regulatory concerns. Here, we report the identification of a Plas...
Presently, the principal tools to combat malaria are restricted to killing the parasite in infected people and killing the mosquito vector to thwart transmission. While successful, these approaches are losing effectiveness in view of parasite resistance to drugs and mosquito resistance to insecticides. Clearly, new approaches to fight this deadly d...
Mosquito-borne diseases cause more than 700 million people infected and one million people die (Caraballo and King, 2014). With the limitations of progress toward elimination imposed by insecticide- and drug-resistance, combined with the lack of vaccines, innovative strategies to fight mosquito-borne disease are urgently needed. In recent years, th...
Many prokaryotic and eukaryotic proteins contain domains of unknown function (DUFs). A DUF3129 family of proteins is widely encoded in the genomes of fungal pathogens. A few studies in plant and insect pathogens indicated that the DUF3129 genes are required for fungal penetration of host cuticles with an unclear mechanism. We found that a varied nu...
Getting to the guts of mosquito control
Malaria persistently evades our best efforts to eliminate it. Pike et al. genetically modified malaria vector mosquitoes to be more immune-resistant to infection by the parasite, which altered the composition of the mosquitoes' gut bacteria. Genetically modified male (female) mosquitoes preferentially mated w...
The final product of the glycerol phosphate (GP) pathway is triacylglycerol (TAG) that regulates the homeostasis of energy, fatty acids and phospholipids in cells. The enzymes involved in this pathway have been characterized in many model organisms; however, their contributions to fungal infection are largely unclear. In this study, we performed se...
Unlabelled:
Cryptococcus neoformans is a human fungal pathogen and a major cause of fungal meningitis in immunocompromised individuals. Treatment options for cryptococcosis are limited. Of the two major antifungal drug classes, azoles are active against C. neoformans but exert a fungistatic effect, necessitating long treatment regimens and leaving...
The C. neoformans cells lacking CDC50 produced normal capsule under noninducing conditions for capsule. C. neoformans H99, cdc50Δ, and cdc50Δ+CDC50 strains and the CDC50 overexpression strain (PHIS-GFP-CDC50) were cultured on YNB and YPD for 3 days, respectively. Capsule production of these cells on YNB (A) and YPD (B) was visualized by India ink s...
The C. neoformans cells lacking CDC50 had normal growth rates on different media. C. neoformans H99, cdc50Δ, and cdc50Δ+CDC50 strains were cultured on YPD, DME, or DME with 10% FBS or on macrophage spent medium. Numbers of CFU were used to determine live cell numbers after incubation for 2, 4, and 24 h in different media. Download
Cdc50 in C. neoformans, but not in S. cerevisiae, plays a negative role in caspofungin internalization. (A) Cultures of C. neoformans H99, cdc50Δ, and cdc50Δ+CDC50 strains were coincubated with 5 µmol BODIPY-labeled caspofungin for 30 min at 30°C. The fluorescent signal of fungal cells was detected by fluorescence microscopy. (B) C. neoformans surv...
Transcription factors (TFs) containing the Basic Leucine Zipper Domain (bZIP) are widely distributed in eukaryotes and display an array of distinct functions. In this study MBZ1, a bZIP-type TF gene, was deleted and functionally characterized in the insect pathogenic fungus Metarhizium robertsii. The deletion mutant (ΔMBZ1) showed defects in cell w...
pH-responsive transcription factor of the PacC/Rim101 family governs adaptation to environment, development and virulence in many fungal pathogens. In this study, we report the functions of a PacC homolog, MrpacC, in an insect pathogenic fungus Metarhizium robertsii. The gene was highly transcribed in the fungus in alkaline conditions and deletion...
Enzymes involved in the triacylglycerol (TAG) biosynthesis have been well studied in the model organisms of yeasts and animals.
Among these, the isoforms of glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase (GPAT) redundantly catalyze the first and rate-limiting
step in glycerolipid synthesis. Here, we report the functions of mrGAT, a GPAT ortholog, in an insec...
Autophagy is a highly conserved process that maintains intracellular homeostasis by degrading proteins or organelles in all eukaryotes. The effect of autophagy on fungal biology and infection of insect pathogens is unknown. Here, we report the function of MrATG8, an ortholog of yeast ATG8, in the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium robertsii. MrATG...
Insect pathogenic fungi like Beauveria bassiana have been developed as environmentally friendly biocontrol agents against arthropod pests. However, restrictive environmental factors, including solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation frequently lead to inconsistent field performance. To improve resistance to UV damage, we used Agrobacterium-mediated transf...
Schematic comparison of a conserved gene cluster in Metarhizium anisopliae and M. acridum putatively involved in synthesis of secondary metabolites, including ergot alkaloids. The core genes dimethylallyl tryptophan synthase (DMAT, an aromatic prenyltransferase that carries out the first committed step of ergot alkaloid biosynthesis) and nonribosom...
Sizes of selected gene families in Metarhizium spp. and other Ascomycetes.
(0.08 MB DOC)
Cytochrome P450 (CYP) genes encoded in Metarhizium anisopliae and M. acridum genomes, arranged by CYP family.
(0.12 MB DOC)
The number of core genes involved in the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites in different fungi.
(0.06 MB DOC)
The number of G-protein coupled receptors encoded in Metarhizium anisopliae and M. acridum genomes, arranged by class.
(0.06 MB DOC)
Classification of conserved domains retained in the pseudogenes of Metarhizium anisopliae and M. acridum.
(0.06 MB DOC)
The number of genes coding for transcription factors in Metarhizium anisopliae and M. acridum, arranged by family.
(0.08 MB DOC)
The number of protein-coding genes and genome size of Metarhizium species and other Ascomycetes.
(0.06 MB DOC)
Expanded (highlighted in green) and contracted (highlighted in yellow) protein families in Metarhizium anisopliae and M. acridum.
(0.10 MB DOC)
Major protein families of Metarhizium spp. and plant pathogenic fungi implicated in the pathogen-host interactions.
(0.18 MB DOC)
Subtilisin proteases encoded in Metarhizium anisopliae and M. acridum genomes, arranged by MEROPS family.
(0.10 MB DOC)
Identification of genes coding for membrane transporters in Metarhizium anisopliae and M. acridum.
(0.08 MB DOC)
The number of genes coding for protein kinases in Metarhizium anisopliae and M. acridum, arranged by class.
(0.06 MB DOC)
General features of the high throughput transcriptome analysis.
(0.06 MB DOC)
Comparative structural mapping of selected regions from Metarhizium anisopliae (MAA) and M. acridum (MAC) genomes. (A) An example of highly syntenic relationships between selected regions from MAA and MAC; (B) Examples of lineage specific regions from MAA and MAC containing high densities of species-specific genes, proteins with unknown functions a...
Characterization of predicted Pth11-like G-protein coupled receptors (GPCR) encoded in the Metarhizium anisopliae (MAA) and M. acridum (MAC) genomes. (A) Neighbor-joining phylogeny of GPCRs from MAA and MAC showing that they are clustered into six subfamilies. The arrows indicate that the GPCR gene most highly transcribed by MAA on either locust or...
Bioassays of Metarhizium anisopliae and M. acridum against adult locusts (A) and cockroaches (B). The median lethal times (LT50) vs. locusts (Locusta migratoria) were 8.60±0.15 and 6.54±0.37 days for M. anisopliae and M. acridum, respectively. For cockroaches (Periplaneta americana), the LT50 for M. anisopliae was 10.10±0.37 days. M. acridum was no...
Differential gene expression profiling for selected orthologous genes from Metarhizium anisopliae and M. acridum infecting locust and cockroach cuticles, respectively. (A) Cytochrome P450 genes; (B) Serine protease subtilisin genes; (C) Trypsin genes; (D) GH18 family of chitinase genes. The Heat Map figures were generated using the log2 ratio of co...
Functional classification of differentially expressed genes. Number of genes expressed by M. anisopliae (A) and M. acridum (B) infecting cockroach (blue bars) and locust (red bars) cuticles. The number of genes differentially expressed by M. anisopliae (blue bars) and M. acridum (red bars) on locust (C) and cockroach (D) cuticles.
(1.51 MB TIF)
Expression of putative transposase coding genes by Metarhizium anisopliae and M. acridum during infection of cockroach (CO) and locust (LO) cuticles.
(0.06 MB DOC)
The number of pseudogenes (by class) in the Metarhizium anisopliae and M. acridum genomes.
(0.05 MB DOC)
The 100 most highly expressed genes in Metarhizium anisopliae and M. acridum infecting locust and cockroach cuticles.
(0.21 MB DOC)
Sexuality-related genes in Metarhizium anisopliae and M. acridum and their orthologs in Aspergillus nidulans and Neurospora crassa.
(0.14 MB DOC)
Trypsin proteases encoded in Metarhizium anisopliae and M. acridum genomes, arranged by MEROPS family.
(0.08 MB DOC)
Aspartyl proteases encoded in Metarhizium anisopliae and M. acridum genomes, arranged by MEROPS family.
(0.08 MB DOC)
Carbohydrate-degrading enzymes in Metarhizium species and other fungi, arranged by GH family.
(0.10 MB DOC)
Differential expression of genes involved in signal transduction.
(0.10 MB DOC)
Metarhizium spp. are being used as environmentally friendly alternatives to chemical insecticides, as model systems for studying insect-fungus interactions, and as a resource of genes for biotechnology. We present a comparative analysis of the genome sequences of the broad-spectrum insect pathogen Metarhizium anisopliae and the acridid-specific M....
