Abstract
Fungi, as well as the rest of living organisms must deal with environmental challenges such as stressful stimuli. Fungi are excellent models to study the general mechanisms of the response to stress, because of their simple, but conserved, signal-transduction and metabolic pathways that are often equivalent to those present in other eukaryotic systems. A factor that has been demonstrated to be involved in these responses is polyamine metabolism, essentially of the three most common polyamines: putrescine, spermidine and spermine. The gathered evidences on this subject suggest that polyamines are able to control cellular signal transduction, as well as to modulate protein-protein interactions. In the present review, we will address the recent advances on the study of fungal metabolism of polyamines, ranging from mutant characterization to potential mechanism of action during different kinds of stress in selected fungal models.
Highlights
Sudden changes in the external conditions can directly impact the internal environment of all living organisms, and can disrupt their homeostasis and normal physiology
TOLERANCE OF FUNGAL MUTANTS AFFECTED IN POLYAMINE METABOLISM TO DIFFERENT STRESS CONDITIONS The study of the stress response in fungal mutants affected in polyamine metabolism was started with S. cerevisiae, where the authors had in mind evidences indicating some roles of polyamines in the protection of the cell and cell components, and cell differentiation (Balasundaram et al, 1993; Chattopadhyay et al, 2006b; Watanabe et al, 2012)
Genes related with polyamine transport have been implicated in the germination process, and it was described that these genes are up-regulated compared to the vegetative state (Ruiz-Herrera, 1994; Dembek et al, 2013). These results suggest a relationship between polyamines and changes in the expression of www.frontiersin.org genes related to stress
Summary
Departamento de Ingeniería Genética, Unidad Irapuato, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Irapuato, México. As well as the rest of living organisms must deal with environmental challenges such as stressful stimuli. Fungi are excellent models to study the general mechanisms of the response to stress, because of their simple, but conserved, signal-transduction and metabolic pathways that are often equivalent to those present in other eukaryotic systems. A factor that has been demonstrated to be involved in these responses is polyamine metabolism, essentially of the three most common polyamines: putrescine, spermidine and spermine. The gathered evidences on this subject suggest that polyamines are able to control cellular signal transduction, as well as to modulate protein-protein interactions. We will address the recent advances on the study of fungal metabolism of polyamines, ranging from mutant characterization to potential mechanism of action during different kinds of stress in selected fungal models
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