A WDR Gene Is a Conserved Member of a Chitin Synthase Gene Cluster and Influences the Cell Wall in Aspergillus nidulans

Guerriero, Gea; Silvestrini, Lucia; Obersriebnig, Michael; Hausman, Jean-François; Strauss, Joseph; Ezcurra, Inés

doi:10.3390/ijms17071031

Cited by 5 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Identifying conserved gene clusters is a useful bioinformatics approach to get first indications on putative functionalities, since it can help identifying regulators and co-factors for a certain pathway [68][69][70]. Hence, we performed a synteny analysis of chitin synthase and deacetylase genes in T. atroviride.…”

Section: The Genomic Environment Of Chs and Cda Reflects Their Specifmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chitin and chitosan remodeling defines vegetative development and Trichoderma biocontrol

et al. 2020

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Fungal parasitism depends on the ability to invade host organisms and mandates adaptive cell wall remodeling to avoid detection and defense reactions by the host. All plant and human pathogens share invasive strategies, which aid to escape the chitin-triggered and chitin-targeted host immune system. Here we describe the full spectrum of the chitin/chitosan-modifying enzymes in the mycoparasite Trichoderma atroviride with a central role in cell wall remodeling. Rapid adaption to a variety of growth conditions, environmental stresses and host defense mechanisms such as oxidative stress depend on the concerted interplay of these enzymes and, ultimately, are necessary for the success of the mycoparasitic attack. To our knowledge, we provide the first in class description of chitin and associated glycopolymer synthesis in a mycoparasite and demonstrate that they are essential for biocontrol. Eight chitin synthases, six chitin deacetylases, additional chitinolytic enzymes, including six chitosanases, transglycosylases as well as accessory proteins are involved in this intricately regulated process. Systematic and biochemical classification, phenotypic characterization and mycoparasitic confrontation assays emphasize the importance of chitin and chitosan assembly in vegetative development and biocontrol in T. atroviride. Our findings critically contribute to understanding the molecular mechanism of chitin synthesis in filamentous fungi and mycoparasites with the overarching goal to selectively exploit the discovered biocontrol strategies.

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Section: The Genomic Environment Of Chs and Cda Reflects Their Specifmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chitin and chitosan remodeling defines vegetative development and Trichoderma biocontrol

et al. 2020

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“…Notably, unlike S. cerevisiae , the transcription of many cell wall related genes (including β-1–3-glucan and chitin synthase genes) in A. nidulans is regulated in an MpkA-independent manner ( 11 ). In an effort to characterize the CWIS pathway, several studies have sought out this alternative signaling pathway to identify how β-1,3-glucan and chitin synthase genes are regulated in response to cell wall perturbation ( 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 ). Connections between the CWIS pathway and several other pathways have also been identified.…”

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confidence: 99%

Dynamic Transcriptomic and Phosphoproteomic Analysis During Cell Wall Stress in Aspergillus nidulans

Chelius

Huso

Reese

et al. 2020

Molecular & Cellular Proteomics

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The fungal cell-wall integrity signaling (CWIS) pathway regulates cellular response to environmental stress to enable wall repair and resumption of normal growth. This complex, interconnected, pathway has been only partially characterized in filamentous fungi. To better understand the dynamic cellular response to wall perturbation, a β-glucan synthase inhibitor (micafungin) was added to a growing A. nidulans shake-flask culture. From this flask, transcriptomic and phosphoproteomic data were acquired over 10 and 120 minutes, respectively. To differentiate statistically-significant dynamic behavior from noise, a multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) model was applied to both data sets. Over 1800 genes were dynamically expressed and 430 phosphorylation sites had changing phosphorylation levels upon micafungin exposure. Twelve kinases had altered phosphorylation and phenotypic profiling of all non-essential kinase deletion mutants revealed putative connections between PrkA, Hk-8-4, and Stk19 and the CWIS pathway. Our collective data implicate actin regulation, endocytosis, and septum formation as critical cellular processes responding to activation of the CWIS pathway, and connections between CWIS and calcium, HOG, and SIN signaling pathways.

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“…This expression level was however negligible and probably due to contaminating residual heterokaryons; it was not relevant to the further characterization of celA ∆, whose phenotype is reminiscent of already characterized cell wall mutants 7 . Southern blotting (DNA cut with EcoRI and DIG-labelled probe amplified with primers celA Upstream Fwd and celA Downstream Rev), diagnostic PCR on genomic DNA (gDNA) and RT-qPCR were performed as described previously 25 . Diagnostic PCRs using gDNA were performed with the Q5 Hot-Start High-Fidelity Master Mix, using the primers celA nested Fwd and celA nested Rev (Suppl.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deletion of the celA gene in Aspergillus nidulans triggers overexpression of secondary metabolite biosynthetic genes

Guerriero

Silvestrini

Legay

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

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Although much progress has been made in the study of cell wall biosynthetic genes in the model filamentous fungus Aspergillus nidulans, there are still targets awaiting characterization. An example is the gene celA (ANIA_08444) encoding a putative mixed linkage glucan synthase. To characterize the role of celA, we deleted it in A. nidulans, analyzed the phenotype of the mycelium and performed RNA-Seq. The strain shows a very strong phenotype, namely “balloons” along the hyphae and aberrant conidiophores, as well as an altered susceptibility to cell wall drugs. These data suggest a potential role of the gene in cell wall-related processes. The Gene Ontology term Enrichment analysis shows increased expression of secondary metabolite biosynthetic genes (sterigmatocystin in particular) in the deleted strain. Our results show that the deletion of celA triggers a strong phenotype reminiscent of cell wall-related aberrations and the upregulation of some secondary metabolite gene clusters in A. nidulans.

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A WDR Gene Is a Conserved Member of a Chitin Synthase Gene Cluster and Influences the Cell Wall in Aspergillus nidulans

Cited by 5 publications

References 38 publications

Chitin and chitosan remodeling defines vegetative development and Trichoderma biocontrol

Chitin and chitosan remodeling defines vegetative development and Trichoderma biocontrol

Dynamic Transcriptomic and Phosphoproteomic Analysis During Cell Wall Stress in Aspergillus nidulans

Deletion of the celA gene in Aspergillus nidulans triggers overexpression of secondary metabolite biosynthetic genes

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