Abstract
The black yeast Exophiala dermatitidis is a widespread polyextremophile and human pathogen, that is found in extreme natural habitats and man-made environments such as dishwashers. It can cause various diseases ranging from phaeohyphomycosis and systemic infections, with fatality rates reaching 40%. While the number of cases in immunocompromised patients are increasing, knowledge of the infections, virulence factors and host response is still scarce. In this study, for the first time, an artificial infection of an ex-vivo skin model with Exophiala dermatitidis was monitored microscopically and transcriptomically. Results show that Exophiala dermatitidis is able to actively grow and penetrate the skin. The analysis of the genomic and RNA-sequencing data delivers a rich and complex transcriptome where circular RNAs, fusion transcripts, long non-coding RNAs and antisense transcripts are found. Changes in transcription strongly affect pathways related to nutrients acquisition, energy metabolism, cell wall, morphological switch, and known virulence factors. The L-Tyrosine melanin pathway is specifically upregulated during infection. Moreover the production of secondary metabolites, especially alkaloids, is increased. Our study is the first that gives an insight into the complexity of the transcriptome of Exophiala dermatitidis during artificial skin infections and reveals new virulence factors.
Highlights
Black yeasts are a special group of Ascomycetes characterized by melanized cells and the ability to form hyphal and yeast-like budding states
The transcriptional landscape of Exophiala dermatitidis during infection was studied by growing Exophiala dermatitidis on human ex-vivo skin models as well as on a prewetted Nylon membrane for 1 week
From the 286 million reads, between 32% and 78%, depending on the sequencing run, mapped to the fungal genome, i.e., 154.5 million reads could be mapped to the Exophiala dermatitidis. 173,133 reads were mapped to the human genome (Supplementary Table 1 for more details)
Summary
Black yeasts are a special group of Ascomycetes characterized by melanized cells and the ability to form hyphal and yeast-like budding states They are known for their capacity to survive in extreme habitats, which range from hot and cold deserts, bare rock surfaces, glaciers (Sterflinger et al, 2012; Selbmann et al, 2015), contaminated soils and rivers. They thrive in man-made extreme environments like dishwashers or sauna facilities (Matos et al, 2002; Gümral et al, 2016).
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