Characterization of arfB gene which encodes a ADP-ribosylation factor protein in Aspergillus fumigatus

• Grant number: 15/18256-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): October 01, 2015
• Effective date (End): September 30, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Microbiology
• Principal Investigator: Marcia Regina von Zeska Kress
• Grantee: Raphael Festuccia Menossi
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Farmacêuticas de Ribeirão Preto (FCFRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The filamentous fungus Aspergillus fumigatus is an opportunistic saprophytic fungus that causes various types of aspergillosis as Allergic Bronchopulmonary the Aspergilloma and Invasive Pulmonary Aspergillosis (API). Aspergillosis is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in immunocompromised patients. It is important to know the composition, architecture and growth mechanism of these fungi as well as the expressed genes repressed during therapy with antifungal drugs. When the immune system is compromised, the conidia germinate in hyphae and can establish a focus of infection in the lung (Maschmeyer et al., 2007). Filamentous fungi pass through a polarized growth, from germination to the elongation of the hyphae, to form a complex micelle. In electron microscopy analyzes showed that this region synthesizes two different types of vesicles, the apical vesicles (79-90 nm diameter) and microvesicles (30-40 nm diameter) (Lee and Shaw, 2008). The ADP-ribosylation factors (ARFs) are linker GTP proteins, overall structure of monomer as well as Ras proteins that participate in intracellular signal transduction. The ArfB belongs to a superfamily of control proteins called GTPases. The ARF are important for the growth of hyphae, besides participating in the assembly and transport of these vesicles, between organelles (Lee and Shaw, 2008). In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the deletion of arf1 or arf2 proved to be feasible and the deletion of both genes proved to be unfeasible (Lee et. Al., 2008). However, in the filamentous fungus Aspergillus nidulans, the arfA gene was shown to be essential (Lee et. Al., 2008).