Abstract
Trichophyton rubrum, an anthropophilic and cosmopolitan fungus, is the most common agent of superficial mycoses. In this study, T. rubrum infection was modelled by adding human skin sections to a limited medium containing glucose and cDNA microarrays were used to monitor T. rubrum gene expression patterns on a global level. We observed that exposure to human skin resulted in upregulation of the expression levels of T. rubrum genes related to many cellular and biological processes, including transcription and translation, metabolism and secondary transport, the stress response, and signalling pathways. These results provide a reference set of T. rubrum genes whose expression patterns change upon infection and reveal previously unknown genes that most likely correspond to proteins that should be considered as virulence factor candidates and potential new drug targets for T. rubrum infection.
Highlights
Trichophyton rubrum is a filamentous fungus found throughout the world that can infect human keratinized tissue, and is the causal agent of 80–90 % of all chronic and recurrent dermatophytoses (Costa et al, 2002; Jennings et al, 2002; Monod et al, 2002)
To assess gene expression patterns during the infection process, the mycelia of a T. rubrum isolate were grown in a human skin suspension medium and equal amounts of mycelia were introduced into limited medium (LM) as a control
As a-aminoadipate reductase is a key enzyme in the branched pathway for lysine and b-lactam biosynthesis of filamentous fungi, and impaired lysine biosynthesis can http://jmm.sgmjournals.org severely attenuate virulence in Aspergillus nidulans and Aspergillus fumigatus (Liebmann et al, 2004; Tang et al, 1994), our results suggest that lysine biosynthesis is related to the process of T. rubrum infection as well
Summary
Trichophyton rubrum is a filamentous fungus found throughout the world that can infect human keratinized tissue (skin, nails and, rarely, hair), and is the causal agent of 80–90 % of all chronic and recurrent dermatophytoses (Costa et al, 2002; Jennings et al, 2002; Monod et al, 2002). This pathogen, which normally causes well-characterized superficial infections, produces skin infections in unusual parts of the body in immunosuppressed patients (Sentamilselvi et al, 1998; Smith et al, 2001; Squeo et al, 1998).
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