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Changes in the Biophysical Properties of the Cell Membrane Are Involved in the Response of Neurospora crassa to Staurosporine.

ABSTRACT: Neurospora crassa is a non-pathogenic filamentous fungus widely used as a multicellular eukaryotic model. Recently, the biophysical properties of the plasma membrane of N. crassa conidia were thoroughly characterized. They evolve during conidial germination at a speed that depends on culture conditions, suggesting an important association between membrane remodeling and the intense membrane biogenesis that takes place during the germinative process. Staurosporine (STS) is a drug used to induce programmed cell death in various organisms. In N. crassa, STS up-regulates the expression of the ABC transporter ABC-3, which localizes at the plasma membrane and pumps STS out. To understand the role of plasma membrane biophysical properties in the fungal drug response, N. crassa was subjected to STS treatment during early and late conidial development stages. Following 1 h treatment with STS, there is an increase in the abundance of the more ordered, sphingolipid-enriched, domains in the plasma membrane of conidia. This leads to higher fluidity in other membrane regions. The global order of the membrane remains thus practically unchanged. Significant changes in sphingolipid-enriched domains were also observed after 15 min challenge with STS, but they were essentially opposite to those verified for the 1 h treatment, suggesting different types of drug responses. STS effects on membrane properties that are more dependent on ergosterol levels also depend on the developmental stage. There were no alterations on 2 h-grown cells, clearly contrasting to what happens at longer growth times. In this case, the differences were more marked for longer STS treatment, and rationalized considering that the drug prevents the increase in the ergosterol/glycerophospholipid ratio that normally takes place at the late conidial stage/transition to the mycelial stage. This could be perceived as a drug-induced development arrest after 5 h growth, involving ergosterol, and pointing to a role of lipid rafts possibly related with an up-regulated expression of the ABC-3 transporter. Overall, our results suggest the involvement of membrane ordered domains in the response mechanisms to STS in N. crassa.

SUBMITTER: Santos FC

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6193110 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Changes in the Biophysical Properties of the Cell Membrane Are Involved in the Response of Neurospora crassa to Staurosporine.

Santos Filipa C FC Lobo Gerson M GM Fernandes Andreia S AS Videira Arnaldo A de Almeida Rodrigo F M RFM

Frontiers in physiology 20181011

Neurospora crassa is a non-pathogenic filamentous fungus widely used as a multicellular eukaryotic model. Recently, the biophysical properties of the plasma membrane of N. crassa conidia were thoroughly characterized. They evolve during conidial germination at a speed that depends on culture conditions, suggesting an important association between membrane remodeling and the intense membrane biogenesis that takes place during the germinative process. Staurosporine (STS) is a drug us ...[more]

PMID: 30364194

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Project description:Purpose: Compare the transcriptional profile of staurosporine-treated cells in Neurospora crassa wild type and Δczt-1 (ΔNCU09974) cells Methods: Conidial suspensions were obtained and 1 x 106 cells/ml incubated in minimal medium for 6 hours (26ºC, 140 rpm, constant light) followed by the addition of staurosporine (or DMSO) and growth for 1 more hour. Cells were harvested using 0.45 μm filters and immediately frozen in liquid nitrogen. Total RNA was isolated by the Trizol-Phenol-Chloroform method. After digestion of 25 μg RNA with TURBO DNAse (Life Technologies), mRNA was purified using Dynabeads oligo(dT) magnetic beads (Life Technologies). The mRNA was chemically fragmented using the Ambion RNA fragmentation kit (Life Technologies). First and second strand cDNA synthesis was achieved using appropriate kits (Life Technologies). The illumina TruSeq kit was employed to generate the cDNA libraries with indexing adapters essentially following the manufacturer’s protocol. After purification of the libraries with AMPure XP beads (Roche), the quality of the libraries was analysed in a Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer. The cDNA libraries were sequenced in a illumina HiSeq2000 and single reads of 50 bp were obtained. Sequencing data was handled essentially with Tophat, Cufflinks and Cuffdiff. Expression levels are presented as Fragments/Reads Per Kilobase of transcript per Million mapped reads (FPKM/RPKM). Results: Transcriptional profiling of staurosporine-treated cells wild type by RNA-sequencing showed that genes encoding the machinery for protein synthesis are enriched among the genes repressed by the drug. Functional category enrichment analyses also show that genes encoding components of the mitochondrial respiratory chain are downregulated by staurosporine, whereas genes involved in endoplasmic reticulum activities are upregulated. In contrast, a staurosporine-treated czt-1 deletion strain is unable to repress the genes for the respiratory chain and to induce the genes related with the endoplasmic reticulum, indicating a role for CZT-1 on the regulation of activity of these organelles. Conclusions: This transcriptional profiling study is framed in a comprehensive study on the role of the novel transcription factor CZT-1 (NCU09974) in Neurospora crassa.

Project description:BackgroundBiofuels derived from lignocellulosic biomass are a viable alternative to fossil fuels required for transportation. Following plant biomass pretreatment, the furan derivative furfural is present at concentrations which are inhibitory to yeasts. Detoxification of furfural is thus important for efficient fermentation. Here, we searched for new genetic attributes in the fungus Neurospora crassa that may be linked to furfural tolerance. The fact that furfural is involved in the natural process of sexual spore germination of N. crassa and that this fungus is highly amenable to genetic manipulations makes it a rational candidate for this study.ResultsBoth hypothesis-based and unbiased (random promotor mutagenesis) approaches were performed to identify N. crassa genes associated with the response to furfural. Changes in the transcriptional profile following exposure to furfural revealed that the affected processes were, overall, similar to those observed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. N. crassa was more tolerant (by ~ 30%) to furfural when carboxymethyl cellulose was the main carbon source as opposed to sucrose, indicative of a link between carbohydrate metabolism and furfural tolerance. We also observed increased tolerance in a Δcre-1 mutant (CRE-1 is a key transcription factor that regulates the ability of fungi to utilize non-preferred carbon sources). In addition, analysis of aldehyde dehydrogenase mutants showed that ahd-2 (NCU00378) was involved in tolerance to furfural as well as the predicted membrane transporter NCU05580 (flr-1), a homolog of FLR1 in S. cerevisiae. Further to the rational screening, an unbiased approach revealed additional genes whose inactivation conferred increased tolerance to furfural: (i) NCU02488, which affected the abundance of the non-anchored cell wall protein NCW-1 (NCU05137), and (ii) the zinc finger protein NCU01407.ConclusionsWe identified attributes in N. crassa associated with tolerance or degradation of furfural, using complementary research approaches. The manipulation of the genes involved in furan sensitivity can provide a means for improving the production of biofuel producing strains. Similar research approaches can be utilized in N. crassa and other filamentous fungi to identify additional attributes relevant to other furans or toxic chemicals.

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Changes in the Biophysical Properties of the Cell Membrane Are Involved in the Response of Neurospora crassa to Staurosporine.

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Changes in the Biophysical Properties of the Cell Membrane Are Involved in the Response of <i>Neurospora crassa</i> to Staurosporine.

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