The conserved and divergent roles of carbonic anhydrases in the filamentous fungi Aspergillus fumigatus and Aspergillus nidulans |
| |
| Authors: | Kap‐Hoon Han Yoon‐Hee Chun Bárbara De Castro Pimentel Figueiredo Frederico Marianetti Soriani Marcela Savoldi Agostinho Almeida Fernando Rodrigues Charlie Timothy Cairns Elaine Bignell Jaqueline Moisés Tobal Maria Helena S Goldman Jong‐Hwan Kim Yong‐Sun Bahn Gustavo Henrique Goldman Márcia Eliana Da Silva Ferreira |
| |
| Institution: | 1. Department of Pharmaceutical Engineering, Woosuk University, Wanju, Korea.;2. Laboratório Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia do Bioetanol (CTBE) and Faculdade de Ciências Farmacêuticas de Ribeir?o Preto, Brazil.;3. Life and Health Sciences Research Institute (ICVS), School of Health Sciences, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal.;4. Department of Microbiology, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.;5. Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeir?o Preto, Universidade de S?o Paulo, S?o Paulo, Brazil.;6. Department of Bioinformatics, Soongsil University, Seoul, Korea.;7. Department of Biotechnology, Center for Fungal Pathogenesis, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea. |
| |
| Abstract: | Carbon dioxide (CO2) and its hydration product bicarbonate (HCO3‐) are essential molecules in various physiological processes of all living organisms. The reversible interconversion between CO2 and HCO3‐ is in equilibrium. This reaction is slow without catalyst, but can be rapidly facilitated by Zn2+‐metalloenzymes named carbonic anhydrases (CAs). To gain an insight into the function of multiple clades of fungal CA, we chose to investigate the filamentous fungi Aspergillus fumigatus and A. nidulans. We identified four and two CAs in A. fumigatus and A. nidulans, respectively, named cafA‐D and canA‐B. The cafA and cafB genes are constitutively, strongly expressed whereas cafC and cafD genes are weakly expressed but CO2‐inducible. Heterologous expression of the A. fumigatus cafB, and A. nidulans canA and canB genes completely rescued the high CO2‐requiring phenotype of a Saccharomyces cerevisiaeΔnce103 mutant. Only the ΔcafAΔcafB and ΔcanB deletion mutants were unable to grow at 0.033% CO2, of which growth defects can be restored by high CO2. Defects in the CAs can affect Aspergilli conidiation. Furthermore, A. fumigatusΔcafA, ΔcafB, ΔcafC, ΔcafD and ΔcafAΔcafB mutant strains are fully virulent in a low‐dose murine infection. |
| |
| Keywords: | |
|
|
