Open AccessTranscriptome and Biochemical Analysis Reveals That Suppression of GPI-Anchor Synthesis Leads to Autophagy and Possible Necroptosis in Aspergillus fumigatus
Author(s) -
Jingye Yan,
Ting Du,
Wan Zhao,
Thomas Hartmann,
Hua Lu,
Yang Liu,
Hongwei Ouyang,
Xuejun Jiang,
Lei Sun,
Cheng Jin
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0059013
Subject(s) - necroptosis , aspergillus fumigatus , autophagy , transcriptome , microbiology and biotechnology , biology , programmed cell death , apoptosis , biochemistry , gene expression , gene
Previously, it has been shown that GPI proteins are required for cell wall synthesis and organization in Aspergillus fumigatus , a human opportunistic pathogen causing life-threatening invasive aspergillosis (IA) in immunocompromised patients. Blocking GPI anchor synthesis leads to severe phenotypes such as cell wall defects, increased cell death, and attenuated virulence. However, the mechanism by which these phenotypes are induced is unclear. To gain insight into global effects of GPI anchoring in A. fumigatus , in this study a conditional expression mutant was constructed and a genome wide transcriptome analysis was carried out. Our results suggested that suppression of GPI anchor synthesis mainly led to activation of phosphatidylinositol (PtdIns) signaling and ER stress. Biochemical and morphological evidence showed that autophagy was induced in response to suppression of the GPI anchor synthesis, and also an increased necroptosis was observed. Based on our results, we propose that activation of PtdIns3K and increased cytosolic Ca 2+ , which was induced by both ER stress and PtdIns signaling, acted as the main effectors to induce autophagy and possible necroptosis.