fos-1, a putative histidine kinase as a virulence factor for systemic aspergillosis.
In fungi, two-component histidine kinases have various functions including regulation of osmosensitivity, and of cell-wall assembly. Furthermore, one of these proteins, cos-1, has been shown to be important for virulence of Candida albicans. Recently, a putative histidine kinase, fos-1, has been isolated and partially characterized from Aspergillus fumigatus. Here we compare the virulence of a fos-1 deletion strain with that of the parental wild-type strain in a murine model of systemic aspergillosis. Our results show that the fos-1 deletion strain has significantly reduced virulence as compared with the parental wild-type strain. Thus, we propose that the fos-1 two-component histidine kinase is a virulence factor of A. fumigatus.
Clemons
K V
KV
California Institute for Medical Research, San Jose 95128, USA. clemons@cimr.org
Miller
T K
TK
Selitrennikoff
C P
CP
Stevens
D A
DA
D000818:Animals; D001228:Aspergillosis / Q000382:microbiology*; D001232:Aspergillus fumigatus / Q000201:enzymology / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D005260:Female; D005656:Fungal Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D017353:Gene Deletion; D051379:Mice; D011494:Protein Kinases / Q000172:deficiency / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D014774:Virulence; D037521:Virulence Factors
D005656:Fungal Proteins; D037521:Virulence Factors; D011494:Protein Kinases; C427183:FOS-1 protein, Aspergillus fumigatus