267 research outputs found
Global analysis of mutations driving microevolution of a heterozygous diploid fungal pathogen
This is the final published version, available from the National Academy of Sciences via the DOI in this recordThe sequence reported in this paper has been deposited in the NCBI
Sequence Read Archive, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject (BioProject ID
PRJNA345600).Candida albicans is a heterozygous diploid yeast that is a commensal
of the human gastrointestinal tract and a prevalent opportunistic
pathogen. Here, whole-genome sequencing was performed on multiple C. albicans isolates passaged both in vitro and in vivo to characterize the complete spectrum of mutations arising in laboratory
culture and in the mammalian host. We establish that, independent
of culture niche, microevolution is primarily driven by de novo base
substitutions and frequent short-tract loss-of-heterozygosity events.
An average base-substitution rate of ∼1.2 × 10−10 per base pair per
generation was observed in vitro, with higher rates inferred during
host infection. Large-scale chromosomal changes were relatively rare,
although chromosome 7 trisomies frequently emerged during passaging in a gastrointestinal model and was associated with increased
fitness for this niche. Multiple chromosomal features impacted mutational patterns, with mutation rates elevated in repetitive regions,
subtelomeric regions, and in gene families encoding cell surface proteins involved in host adhesion. Strikingly, de novo mutation rates
were more than 800-fold higher in regions immediately adjacent to
emergent loss-of-heterozygosity tracts, indicative of recombinationinduced mutagenesis. Furthermore, genomes showed biased patterns
of mutations suggestive of extensive purifying selection during passaging. These results reveal how both cell-intrinsic and cell-extrinsic
factors influence C. albicans microevolution, and provide a quantitative picture of genome dynamics in this heterozygous diploid species.National Institute of Health (NIH)Burroughs Wellcome FundSigma Delta Epsilon-Graduate Women in ScienceWellcome Trust/Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyNational Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH, Department of Health and Human Service
Hsf1 and Hsp90 orchestrate temperature-dependent global transcriptional remodelling and chromatin architecture in Candida albicans
This is the final version. Available from Nature Research via the DOI in this record.RNA-sequencing data sets are available at ArrayExpress (www.ebi.ac.uk) under accession code E-MTAB-4075. ChIP-seq data sets are available at the NCBI SRA database (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) under accession code SRP071687. The authors declare that all other data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its supplementary information files, or from the corresponding author upon request.Fever is a universal response to infection, and opportunistic pathogens such as Candida albicans have evolved complex circuitry to sense and respond to heat. Here we harness RNA-seq and ChIP-seq to discover that the heat shock transcription factor, Hsf1, binds distinct motifs in nucleosome-depleted promoter regions to regulate heat shock genes and genes involved in virulence in C. albicans. Consequently, heat shock increases C. albicans host cell adhesion, damage and virulence. Hsf1 activation depends upon the molecular chaperone Hsp90 under basal and heat shock conditions, but the effects are opposite and in part controlled at the level of Hsf1 expression and DNA binding. Finally, we demonstrate that Hsp90 regulates global transcription programs by modulating nucleosome levels at promoters of stress-responsive genes. Thus, we describe a mechanism by which C. albicans responds to temperature via Hsf1 and Hsp90 to orchestrate gene expression and chromatin architecture, thereby enabling thermal adaptation and virulence.Wellcome TrustCanadian Institutes of Health ResearchCanadian Institutes of Health ResearchBiotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)European Research Council (ERC)Science and Technology Development Fund of Macau S.A.R (FDCT)Research and Development Administrative Office of the University of MacauNational Institutes of Health (NIH
V<sub>H</sub> replacement in rearranged immunoglobulin genes
Examples suggesting that all or part of the V<sub>H</sub> segment of a rearranged V<sub>H</sub>DJ<sub>H</sub> may be replaced by all or part of another V<sub>H</sub> have been appearing since the 1980s. Evidence has been presented of two rather different types of replacement. One of these has gained acceptance and has now been clearly demonstrated to occur. The other, proposed more recently, has not yet gained general acceptance because the same effect can be produced by polymerase chain reaction artefact. We review both types of replacement including a critical examination of evidence for the latter. The first type involves RAG proteins and recombination signal sequences (RSS) and occurs in immature B cells. The second was also thought to be brought about by RAG proteins and RSS. However, it has been reported in hypermutating cells which are not thought to express RAG proteins but in which activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID) has recently been shown to initiate homologous recombination. Re-examination of the published sequences reveals AID target sites in V<sub>H</sub>-V<sub>H</sub> junction regions and examples that resemble gene conversion
Antagonistic paralogs control a switch between growth and pathogen resistance in C. elegans
Immune genes are under intense, pathogen-induced pressure, which causes these genes to diversify over evolutionary time and become species-specific. Through a forward genetic screen we recently described a C. elegans-specific gene called pals-22 to be a repressor of “Intracellular Pathogen Response” or IPR genes. Here we describe pals-25, which, like pals-22, is a species-specific gene of unknown biochemical function. We identified pals-25 in a screen for suppression of pals-22 mutant phenotypes and found that mutations in pals-25 suppress all known phenotypes caused by mutations in pals-22. These phenotypes include increased IPR gene expression, thermotolerance, and immunity against natural pathogens, including Nematocida parisii microsporidia and the Orsay virus. Mutations in pals-25 also reverse the reduced lifespan and slowed growth of pals-22 mutants. Transcriptome analysis indicates that pals-22 and pals-25 control expression of genes induced not only by natural pathogens of the intestine, but also by natural pathogens of the epidermis. Indeed, in an independent forward genetic screen we identified pals-22 as a repressor and pals-25 as an activator of epidermal defense gene expression. In summary, the species-specific pals-22 and pals-25 genes act as a switch to regulate a program of gene expression, growth, and defense against diverse natural pathogens in C. elegans
Microevolution of serial clinical isolates of Cryptococcus neoformans var. grubii and C. gattii
This is the final version. Available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.The pathogenic species of Cryptococcus are a major cause of mortality
owing to severe infections in immunocompromised as well as immunocompetent individuals. Although antifungal treatment is usually effective, many patients relapse
after treatment, and in such cases, comparative analyses of the genomes of incident
and relapse isolates may reveal evidence of determinative, microevolutionary changes
within the host. Here, we analyzed serial isolates cultured from cerebrospinal fluid
specimens of 18 South African patients with recurrent cryptococcal meningitis. The
time between collection of the incident isolates and collection of the relapse isolates
ranged from 124 days to 290 days, and the analyses revealed that, during this period within the patients, the isolates underwent several genetic and phenotypic
changes. Considering the vast genetic diversity of cryptococcal isolates in subSaharan Africa, it was not surprising to find that the relapse isolates had acquired
different genetic and correlative phenotypic changes. They exhibited various mechanisms for enhancing virulence, such as growth at 39°C, adaptation to stress, and
capsule production; a remarkable amplification of ERG11 at the native and unlinked
locus may provide stable resistance to fluconazole. Our data provide a deeper understanding of the microevolution of Cryptococcus species under pressure from antifungal chemotherapy and host immune responses. This investigation clearly suggests a promising strategy to identify novel targets for improved diagnosis, therapy,
and prognosis.Wellcome TrustNational Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease
Comparing genomic variant identification protocols for Candida auris.
Genomic analyses are widely applied to epidemiological, population genetic and experimental studies of pathogenic fungi. A wide range of methods are employed to carry out these analyses, typically without including controls that gauge the accuracy of variant prediction. The importance of tracking outbreaks at a global scale has raised the urgency of establishing high-accuracy pipelines that generate consistent results between research groups. To evaluate currently employed methods for whole-genome variant detection and elaborate best practices for fungal pathogens, we compared how 14 independent variant calling pipelines performed across 35 Candida auris isolates from 4 distinct clades and evaluated the performance of variant calling, single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) counts and phylogenetic inference results. Although these pipelines used different variant callers and filtering criteria, we found high overall agreement of SNPs from each pipeline. This concordance correlated with site quality, as SNPs discovered by a few pipelines tended to show lower mapping quality scores and depth of coverage than those recovered by all pipelines. We observed that the major differences between pipelines were due to variation in read trimming strategies, SNP calling methods and parameters, and downstream filtration criteria. We calculated specificity and sensitivity for each pipeline by aligning three isolates with chromosomal level assemblies and found that the GATK-based pipelines were well balanced between these metrics. Selection of trimming methods had a greater impact on SAMtools-based pipelines than those using GATK. Phylogenetic trees inferred by each pipeline showed high consistency at the clade level, but there was more variability between isolates from a single outbreak, with pipelines that used more stringent cutoffs having lower resolution. This project generated two truth datasets useful for routine benchmarking of C. auris variant calling, a consensus VCF of genotypes discovered by 10 or more pipelines across these 35 diverse isolates and variants for 2 samples identified from whole-genome alignments. This study provides a foundation for evaluating SNP calling pipelines and developing best practices for future fungal genomic studies
The importance of antimicrobial resistance in medical mycology.
Prior to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, antibiotic resistance was listed as the major global health care priority. Some analyses, including the O'Neill report, have predicted that deaths due to drug-resistant bacterial infections may eclipse the total number of cancer deaths by 2050. Although fungal infections remain in the shadow of public awareness, total attributable annual deaths are similar to, or exceeds, global mortalities due to malaria, tuberculosis or HIV. The impact of fungal infections has been exacerbated by the steady rise of antifungal drug resistant strains and species which reflects the widespread use of antifungals for prophylaxis and therapy, and in the case of azole resistance in Aspergillus, has been linked to the widespread agricultural use of antifungals. This review, based on a workshop hosted by the Medical Research Council and the University of Exeter, illuminates the problem of antifungal resistance and suggests how this growing threat might be mitigated
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Genetic diversity and microevolution in clinical Cryptococcus isolates from Cameroon.
Cryptococcal meningitis is the second most common cause of death in people living with HIV/AIDS, yet we have a limited understanding of how cryptococcal isolates change over the course of infection. Cryptococcal infections are environmentally acquired, and the genetic diversity of these infecting isolates can also be geographically linked. Here, we employ whole genome sequences for 372 clinical Cryptococcus isolates from 341 patients with HIV-associated cryptococcal meningitis obtained via a large clinical trial, across both Malawi and Cameroon, to enable population genetic comparisons of isolates between countries. We see that isolates from Cameroon are highly clonal, when compared to those from Malawi, with differential rates of disruptive variants in genes with roles in DNA binding and energy use. For a subset of patients (22) from Cameroon, we leverage longitudinal sampling, with samples taken at days 7 and 14 post enrolment, to interrogate the genetic changes that arise over the course of infection, and the genetic diversity of isolates within patients. We see disruptive variants arising over the course of infection in several genes, including the phagocytosis regulating transcription factor GAT204. In addition, in 13% of patients sampled longitudinally we see evidence for mixed infections. This approach identifies geographically linked genetic variation, signatures of microevolution, and evidence for mixed infections across a clinical cohort of patients affected by cryptococcal meningitis in Central Africa
Post-genomic approaches to understanding interactions between fungi and their environment
Fungi inhabit every natural and anthropogenic environment on Earth. They have highly varied life-styles including saprobes (using only dead biomass as a nutrient source), pathogens (feeding on living biomass), and symbionts (co-existing with other organisms). These distinctions are not absolute as many species employ several life styles (e.g. saprobe and opportunistic pathogen, saprobe and mycorrhiza). To efficiently survive in these different and often changing environments, fungi need to be able to modify their physiology and in some cases will even modify their local environment. Understanding the interaction between fungi and their environments has been a topic of study for many decades. However, recently these studies have reached a new dimension. The availability of fungal genomes and development of post-genomic technologies for fungi, such as transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics, have enabled more detailed studies into this topic resulting in new insights. Based on a Special Interest Group session held during IMC9, this paper provides examples of the recent advances in using (post-)genomic approaches to better understand fungal interactions with their environments
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