Project description:We wish to respond to the commentary of de la Iglesia et al. [1]. Studies comparing sleep in different communities have different goals. One frequent goal has been to determine how sleep is affected by manipulating specific 'modern' conditions. Many studies have investigated the effect of artificial light and electronic entertainment. Such studies have clearly shown that light, particularly blue light, delays sleep onset [2]. Studying the effect of artificial light on sleep was not a goal of our study.
Project description:Pathogens must be able to overcome both host defenses and antimicrobial treatment in order to successfully infect and maintain colonization of the host. One way fungi accomplish this feat and overcome intercellular toxin accumulation is efflux pumps, in particular ATP-binding cassette transporters and transporters of the major facilitator superfamily. Members of these two superfamilies remove many toxic compounds by coupling transport with ATP hydrolysis or a proton gradient, respectively. Fungal genomes encode a plethora of members of these families of transporters compared to other organisms. In this review we discuss the role these two fungal superfamilies of transporters play in virulence and resistance to antifungal agents. These efflux transporters are responsible not only for export of compounds involved in pathogenesis such as secondary metabolites, but also export of host-derived antimicrobial compounds. In addition, we examine the current knowledge of these transporters in resistance of pathogens to clinically relevant antifungal agents.