Abstract
Metal nanoparticles used as antifungals have increased the occurrence of fungal–metal interactions. However, there is a lack of knowledge about how these interactions cause genomic and physiological changes, which can produce fungal superbugs. Despite interest in these interactions, there is limited understanding of resistance mechanisms in most fungi studied until now. We highlight the current knowledge of fungal homeostasis of zinc, copper, iron, manganese, and silver to comprehensively examine associated mechanisms of resistance. Such mechanisms have been widely studied in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, but limited reports exist in filamentous fungi, though they are frequently the subject of nanoparticle biosynthesis and targets of antifungal metals. In most cases, microarray analyses uncovered resistance mechanisms as a response to metal exposure. In yeast, metal resistance is mainly due to the down-regulation of metal ion importers, utilization of metallothionein and metallothionein-like structures, and ion sequestration to the vacuole. In contrast, metal resistance in filamentous fungi heavily relies upon cellular ion export. However, there are instances of resistance that utilized vacuole sequestration, ion metallothionein, and chelator binding, deleting a metal ion importer, and ion storage in hyphal cell walls. In general, resistance to zinc, copper, iron, and manganese is extensively reported in yeast and partially known in filamentous fungi; and silver resistance lacks comprehensive understanding in both.
Highlights
The increasing applications of fungal–metal interactions have led to the need for research on their contributions to fungal resistance [1,2]
Molybdenum is a metal that is discussed significantly less in eukaryotic homeostasis. It has only been identified as a cofactor for four human proteins, and in fungi it has only been suggested that it plays an unidentified role as a nitrate reductase and a xanthine dehydrogenase [128,129]. Other metals such as silver, gold, lead, nickel, and cadmium have only been implicated in fungal–metal interactions related to toxicity, nanoparticle myco-synthesis, and heavy metal myco-remediation, but information pertaining to homeostasis is limited [103,130,131]
This review shows that copper homeostasis is well-studied in S. cerevisiae and S. pombe; more research is needed in other Ascomycetes and Basidiomycetes
Summary
The increasing applications of fungal–metal interactions have led to the need for research on their contributions to fungal resistance [1,2]. Fungi are being employed in the green biosynthesis of nanoparticles due to their economic viability, high levels of natural metal resistance, and ease of mass production as antimicrobial agents [5,6,7]. Both instances highlight contributions to increased incidence of fungal-metal interactions, demonstrating the importance of further divulging the intricacies of their relationship
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