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Inhibition of Vesicular Transport Influences Fungal Susceptibility to Fluconazole.

ABSTRACT: Fungal infections pose a substantial threat to the human population. They can cause either mild and relatively harmless infections or invasive and often lethal diseases in patients with a weakened immune system. The majority of these human fungal infections are caused by Candida species. The limited amount of available therapies, together with the development of resistance against these drugs, strongly emphasizes the need for novel therapeutic strategies. As it is quite time-consuming to introduce completely new drugs to the market, potentiating the efficacy of existing drugs would be a better strategy. Therefore, it is important to identify cellular pathways involved in the development of drug resistance. We found that vesicular transport is involved in fungal susceptibility to the most widely used antifungal drug, fluconazole. We identified specific complexes in the vesicular transport pathway which contribute to fluconazole resistance or tolerance in the model organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae Furthermore, we confirmed our findings in the clinically relevant fungi Candida albicans and Candida glabrata Finally, we show that the combination of fluconazole with a specific inhibitor of the vesicular transport pathway increases the susceptibility of Candida species, indicating the potential of using vesicular transport as a target in combination therapy.

SUBMITTER: Demuyser L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6496062 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Inhibition of Vesicular Transport Influences Fungal Susceptibility to Fluconazole.

Demuyser Liesbeth L Van Dyck Katrien K Timmermans Bea B Van Dijck Patrick P

Antimicrobial agents and chemotherapy 20190425 5

Fungal infections pose a substantial threat to the human population. They can cause either mild and relatively harmless infections or invasive and often lethal diseases in patients with a weakened immune system. The majority of these human fungal infections are caused by <i>Candida</i> species. The limited amount of available therapies, together with the development of resistance against these drugs, strongly emphasizes the need for novel therapeutic strategies. As it is quite time-consuming to ...[more]

PMID: 30782993

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Project description:Schizophrenia (SCZ) is a common, disabling mental illness with high heritability but complex, poorly understood genetic etiology. As the first phase of a genomic convergence analysis of SCZ, we generated 16.7 billion nucleotides of short read, shotgun sequences of cDNA from post-mortem cerebellar cortices of 14 patients and six matched controls. A rigorous analysis pipeline was developed for analysis of digital gene expression studies. Sequences aligned to approximately 33,200 transcripts in each sample, with average coverage of 450 reads per gene. Following adjustments for confounding clinical, sample and experimental sources of variation, 215 genes differed significantly in expression between cases and controls. Golgi apparatus, vesicular transport, membrane association, Zinc binding and regulation of transcription were over-represented among differentially expressed genes. Twenty three genes with altered expression and involvement in presynaptic vesicular transport, Golgi function and GABAergic neurotransmission define a unifying molecular hypothesis for dysfunction in cerebellar cortex in SCZ. Experiment Overall Design: 16.7 billion nucleotides of shotgun, full length cDNA sequence data were generated using Illumina Genome Analyzer platforms with sequencing-by-synthesis (SBS) chemistry from 20 mRNA samples (Lister et al., 2008; Morin et al., 2008)(Mortazvi et al., 2008). mRNA samples were isolated post-mortem from the lateral hemispheres of the cerebellar cortices of 14 patients with SCZ and 6 control individuals (Paz et al., 2006; Bullock et al., In Press)(Table 1). Unrelated subjects were chosen to facilitate sampling of genetic heterogeneity (Freimer and Sabatti, 2004; McClellan et al., 2007). Cases and controls were approximately matched for age (cases, 45.2 + 11.8 years; controls 41.3 + 9.2 years), sex (all male), race, post-mortem interval (cases, 12.2 + 5.0 hours; controls 17.7 + 3.3 hours), cause of death, autopsy brain pH (cases, 6.54 + 0.19; controls 6.46 + 0.10) and RNA integrity number (cases, 8.06 + 0.53; controls, 7.87 + 0.41) (Table 1). 12.5 – 38.7 million, high quality sequences of length 32 – 36 bp were generated per sample (Table 2). Sequences were aligned to the human genome and RefSeq transcript databases using the algorithm GMAP, which allowed < 2 (< 6%) mismatches (Wu and Watanabe, 2005). There was little intra-sample variability in the number of sequences aligned to each locus from run-to-run or instrument-to-instrument (Fig. 1A; all source coefficient of variation 3.4%). 43.5 + 6.7% of sequences aligned to a transcript and 69.4 + 9.6% to the genome, evidence that annotation of mRNA isoforms in Homo sapiens is incomplete (Birney et al., 2007) (Table 2). 91% of alignments were unique (Table 2). Reads aligning to more than one location contained repetitive, paralogous, polymorphic or low complexity sequences and primarily mapped to untranslated regions or highly polymorphic gene families, such as major histocompatibility genes (Sugarbaker et al., 2008). Unmapped sequences did not align to mitochondrial or 1879 viral genomes, offering negative evidence of chronic viral etiology for SCZ in these patients.

Project description:Objective- Perivascular adipose tissue (PVAT) contains an independent adrenergic system that can take up, metabolize, release, and potentially synthesize the vasoactive catecholamine norepinephrine. Norepinephrine has been detected in PVAT, but the mechanism of its protection within this tissue is unknown. Here, we investigate whether PVAT adipocytes can store norepinephrine using VMAT (vesicular monoamine transporter). Approach and Results- High-performance liquid chromatography identified norepinephrine in normal male Sprague Dawley rat aortic, superior mesenteric artery, and mesenteric resistance vessel PVATs, and retroperitoneal fat. Real-time polymerase chain reaction revealed VMAT1 and VMAT2 mRNA expression in the adipocytes and stromal vascular fraction of mesenteric resistance vessel PVAT. Immunofluorescence demonstrated the presence of VMAT1 and VMAT2, and the colocalization of VMAT2 with norepinephrine, in the cytoplasm of adipocytes in mesenteric resistance vessel PVAT. A protocol was developed to capture real-time uptake of Mini 202-a functional and fluorescent VMAT probe-in live rat PVAT adipocytes. Mini 202 was taken up by freshly isolated and differentiated adipocytes from mesenteric resistance vessel PVAT and adipocytes from thoracic aortic and superior mesenteric artery PVATs. In adipocytes freshly isolated from mesenteric resistance vessel PVAT, addition of rose bengal (VMAT inhibitor), nisoxetine (norepinephrine transporter inhibitor), or corticosterone (organic cation 3 transporter inhibitor) significantly reduced Mini 202 signal. Immunofluorescence supports that neither VMAT1 nor VMAT2 is present in retroperitoneal adipocytes, suggesting that PVAT adipocytes may be unique in storing norepinephrine. Conclusions- This study supports a novel function of PVAT adipocytes in storing amines in a VMAT-dependent manner. It provides a foundation for future studies exploring the purpose and mechanisms of norepinephrine storage by PVAT in normal physiology and obesity-related hypertension.

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Inhibition of Vesicular Transport Influences Fungal Susceptibility to Fluconazole.

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Inhibition of Vesicular Transport Influences Fungal Susceptibility to Fluconazole.

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