| Title: | "Candida glabrata Ste20 is involved in maintaining cell wall integrity and adaptation to hypertonic stress, and is required for wild-type levels of virulence" |
| Author(s): | Calcagno AM; Bignell E; Rogers TR; Canedo M; Muhlschlegel FA; Haynes K; |
| Address: | "Department of Infectious Diseases, Imperial College London, Du Cane Road, London W12 ONN, UK" |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 0749-503X (Print) 0749-503X (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "The conserved family of fungal Ste20 p21-activated serine-threonine protein kinases regulate several signalling cascades. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae Ste20 is involved in pheromone signalling, invasive growth, the hypertonic stress response, cell wall integrity and binds Cdc42, a Rho-like small GTP-binding protein required for polarized morphogenesis. We have cloned the STE20 homologue from the fungal pathogen Candida glabrata and have shown that it is present in a single copy in the genome. Translation of the nucleotide sequence predicts that C. glabrata Ste20 contains a highly conserved p21-activated serine-threonine protein kinase domain, a binding site for G-protein beta subunits and a regulatory Rho-binding domain that enables the kinase to interact with Cdc42 and/or Rho-like small GTPases. C. glabrata Ste20 has 53% identity and 58% predicted amino acid similarity to S. cerevisiae Ste20 and can complement both the nitrogen starvation-induced filamentation and mating defects of S. cerevisiae ste20 mutants. Analysis of ste20 null and disrupted strains suggest that in C. glabrata Ste20 is required for a fully functional hypertonic stress response and intact cell wall integrity pathway. C. glabrata Ste20 is not required for nitrogen starvation-induced filamentation. Survival analysis revealed that C. glabrata ste20 mutants, while still able to cause disease, are mildly attenuated for virulence compared to reconstituted STE20 cells" |
| Keywords: | "Amino Acid Sequence Animals Base Sequence Candida glabrata/enzymology/genetics/pathogenicity/*physiology Candidiasis/*microbiology Cell Wall/enzymology/physiology Cloning, Molecular DNA, Fungal/chemistry/genetics Fungal Proteins/genetics/*physiology Genet;" |
| Notes: | "MedlineCalcagno, Ana-Maria Bignell, Elaine Rogers, Thomas R Canedo, Mariana Muhlschlegel, Fritz A Haynes, Ken eng BBS/B/10331/BB_/Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council/United Kingdom Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't England 2004/05/28 Yeast. 2004 May; 21(7):557-68. doi: 10.1002/yea.1125" |
