Conidia/mycelium-to-yeast transition of Paracoccidioidesbrasiliensis is a critical step for the establishment of paracoccidioidomycosis, a systemic mycosis endemic in Latin America. Thus, knowledge of the factors that mediate this transition is of major importance for the design of intervention strategies. So far, the only known pre-requisites for the accomplishment of the morphological transition are the temperature shift to 37 °C and the availability of organic sulfur compounds.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Paracoccidioides brasiliensis causes paracoccidioidomycosis, one of the most prevalent systemic mycosis in Latin America. Thus, understanding the characteristics of the protective immune response to P. brasiliensis is of interest, as it may reveal targets for disease control.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecent evidence suggests that Paracoccidioides species have the potential to undergo sexual reproduction, although no sexual cycle has been identified either in nature or under laboratory conditions. In the present work we detected low expression levels of the heterothallic MAT loci genes MAT1-1 and MAT1-2, the α-pheromone (PBα) gene, and the α- and a-pheromone receptor (PREB and PREA) genes in yeast and mycelia forms of several Paracoccidioides isolates. None of the genes were expressed in a mating type dependent manner.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEndocytosis regulates the plasma membrane protein landscape in response to environmental cues. In yeast, the endocytosis of transporters depends on their ubiquitylation by the Nedd4-like ubiquitin ligase Rsp5, but how extracellular signals trigger this ubiquitylation is unknown. Various carbon source transporters are known to be ubiquitylated and endocytosed when glucose-starved cells are exposed to glucose.
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