Gliotoxin Induces Cofilin Phosphorylation to Promote Actin Cytoskeleton Dynamics and Internalization of Into Type II Human Pneumocyte Cells.

is able to internalize into lung epithelial cells to escape from immune attack for further dissemination. We previously reported that gliotoxin, a major mycotoxin of , promotes this internalization; however, the mechanism remained unclear. Here, we report that gliotoxin is able to induce cofilin phosphorylation in A549 type II human pneumocytes.

Characterization of crystal structure and key residues of Aspergillus fumigatus nucleoside diphosphate kinase.

Aspergillus fumigatus is a major pathogen of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis with high mortality rate. The nucleoside diphosphate kinase of A. fumigatus, AfNDK (also called SwoH) is essential for its viability, however, its structural characteristic was unknown.

Role of Downregulation and Phosphorylation of Cofilin in Polarized Growth, MpkA Activation and Stress Response of .

causes most of aspergillosis in clinic and comprehensive function analysis of its key protein would promote anti-aspergillosis. In a previous study, we speculated actin depolymerizing factor cofilin might be essential for viability and found its overexpression upregulated oxidative response and cell wall polysaccharide synthesis of this pathogen. Here, we constructed a conditional mutant to determine the essential role of cofilin.

Gliotoxin destructs the pulmonary epithelium barrier function by reducing cofilin oligomer formation to promote the dissolution of actin stress fibers.

The destruction of pulmonary epithelium is a major feature of lung diseases caused by the fungal pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus (A. fumigatus). Gliotoxin, a major mycotoxin of A.

Role of actin depolymerizing factor cofilin in Aspergillus fumigatus oxidative stress response and pathogenesis.

Aspergillus fumigatus is a major fungal pathogen that is responsible for approximately 90% of human aspergillosis. Cofilin is an actin depolymerizing factor that plays crucial roles in multiple cellular functions in many organisms. However, the functions of cofilin in A.

Crystal structure of the cell corpse engulfment protein CED-2 in Caenorhabditis elegans.

In the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, the cell corpse engulfment proteins CED-2, CED-5, and CED-12 act in the same pathway to regulate the activation of the Rac small GTPase, CED-10, leading to the rearrangement of the actin cytoskeleton for engulfing apoptotic cells. Nevertheless, it is not well understood how these proteins act together. Here we report the crystal structures of the CED-2 protein as determined by X-ray crystallography.

Blind color isolation for color-channel-based fringe pattern profilometry using digital projection.

We present an algorithm for estimating the color demixing matrix based on the color fringe patterns captured from the reference plane or the surface of the object. The advantage of this algorithm is that it is a blind approach to calculating the demixing matrix in the sense that no extra images are required for color calibration before performing profile measurement. Simulation and experimental results convince us that the proposed algorithm can significantly reduce the influence of the color cross talk and at the same time improve the measurement accuracy of the color-channel-based phase-shifting profilometry.

Discrete cosine transform-based shift estimation for fringe pattern profilometry using a generalized analysis model.

What is believed to be a new analysis algorithm to carry out profile measurement with low computational complexity and less noise sensitivity is presented. First, a discrete cosine transform (DCT)-based representation method is introduced to express the height distribution of a 3D surface. Then a novel shift estimation algorithm, called the DCT-based shift estimation (DCT-SE), is presented to reconstruct 3D object surfaces by using the proposed expression and the generalized analysis model.

Three-dimensional profilometry based on shift estimation of projected fringe patterns.

This paper presents a new approach to fringe pattern profilometry. In this paper, a generalized model describing the relationship between the projected fringe pattern and the deformed fringe pattern is derived, in which the projected fringe pattern can be arbitrary rather than being limited to being sinusoidal, as are those for the conventional approaches. Based on this model, what is believed to be a new approach is proposed to reconstruct the three-dimensional object surface by estimating the shift between the projected and deformed fringe patterns.