Abstract
Copper is a metal ion that is required as a micronutrient for growth and proliferation. However, copper accumulation generates toxicity by multiple mechanisms, potentially leading to cell death. Due to its toxic nature at high concentrations, different chemical variants of copper have been extensively used as antifungal agents in agriculture and medicine. Most studies on copper homeostasis have been carried out in bacteria, yeast, and mammalian organisms. However, knowledge on filamentous fungi is less well documented. This review summarizes the knowledge gathered in the last few years about copper homeostasis in the filamentous fungi Aspergillus fumigatus and Aspergillus nidulans: The mechanism of action of copper, the uptake and detoxification systems, their regulation at the transcriptional level, and the role of copper homeostasis in fungal pathogenicity are presented.
Highlights
All organisms depend on metal ions as catalysts, as structural elements in proteins, in electron transfer reactions, or as messengers
We present an overview of recently published findings on different aspects of copper homeostasis in filamentous fungi, which constitute a major group of microorganisms associated with agricultural, food, clinical, and
One of the copper transporting protein (Ctr) proteins has a dominant role over the other one, but the deletion of both Ctr proteins proves the complementary relationship between both proteins
Summary
All organisms depend on metal ions as catalysts, as structural elements in proteins, in electron transfer reactions, or as messengers. The first-row transition metals, cobalt (Co), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), and nickel (Ni), possess specific redox potential characteristics which are unavoidably required in key biological processes (Gerwien et al 2018; Nevitt et al 2012) The availability of these metals must be maintained within a narrow range of concentrations, as an excess can result in metal toxicity (Blatzer and Latge 2017). The model yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has served as an important reference for other lower eukaryotes (Balamurugan and Schaffner 2006), including pathogens like Cryptococcus neoformans and Candida albicans (Ballou and Wilson 2016). In these models, copper is a recognized virulence factor (Zhang et al 2016). We will pay special attention to Aspergillus fumigatus, the model organism Aspegillus nidulans, and the plant pathogen Botrytis cinerea
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