Fu, MS;
De Sordi, L;
Mühlschlegel, FA;
(2012)
Functional characterization of the small heat shock protein Hsp12p from Candida albicans.
PLoS One
, 7
(8)
, Article e42894. 10.1371/journal.pone.0042894.
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Abstract
Hsp12p is considered to be a small heat shock protein and conserved among fungal species. To investigate the expression of this heat shock protein in the fungal pathogen Candida albicans we developed an anti-CaHsp12p antibody. We show that this protein is induced during stationary phase growth and under stress conditions including heat shock, osmotic, oxidative and heavy metal stress. Furthermore, we find that CaHsp12p expression is influenced by the quorum sensing molecule farnesol, the change of CO(2) concentration and pH. Notably we show that the key transcription factor Efg1p acts as a positive regulator of CaHsp12p in response to heat shock and oxidative stress and demonstrate that CaHsp12p expression is additionally modulated by Hog1p and the cAMP-PKA signaling pathway. To study the function of Hsp12p in C. albicans we generated a null mutant, in which all four CaHSP12 genes have been deleted. Phenotypic analysis of the strain shows that CaHSP12 is not essential for stress resistance, morphogenesis or virulence when tested in a Drosophila model of infection. However, when overexpressed, CaHSP12 significantly enhanced cell-cell adhesion, germ tube formation and susceptibility to azole antifungal agents whilst desensitizing C. albicans to the quorum sensing molecule farnesol.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Functional characterization of the small heat shock protein Hsp12p from Candida albicans. |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0042894 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0042894 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © Fu et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. PMCID: PMC3413664 |
| Keywords: | Antifungal Agents, Azoles, Candida albicans, Codon, Initiator, Cyclic AMP, Cyclic AMP-Dependent Protein Kinases, Farnesol, Fungal Proteins, Gene Expression Regulation, Fungal, Genes, Fungal, Heat-Shock Proteins, Small, Heat-Shock Response, Mutation, Osmotic Pressure, Oxidative Stress, Polyenes, Quorum Sensing, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Signal Transduction, Species Specificity, Stress, Physiological, Virulence |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1387209 |
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