title: Effect of melanization upon porosity of the cryptococcal cell wall.
abstract: The cell-wall constituent, melanin, is a virulence factor for pathogenic fungi, but its structural and mechanistic role is not clearly understood. As intermediates in melanin formation are cross-linking agents, we wondered whether melanized cell walls might be more highly cross-linked and less porous than non-melanized cell walls. The fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans makes melanin only in the presence of exogenous catechols; we cultivated it with and without 1 mmol/l dopamine. We prepared mechanically intact melanized and non-melanized cell walls by boiling cells in 10% sodium dodecyl sulfate; electron microscopy showed disruption of cytoplasm. We poured the resulting spheres into columns and studied the elution behavior of graded dextrans. High-molecular-weight dextrans eluted earlier than low-molecular-weight dextrans, which, in turn, eluted before glucose, behavior characteristic of size-exclusion chromatography. We calculated the thresholds above which the polymers were totally excluded from the cell walls. Melanized cells exhibited a threshold of molecular weight 30 600, non-melanized, 270 000 (P <0.01). The corresponding Einstein-Stokes radii are 4.0 and 10.6 nm, respectively; these represent the calculated largest pore sizes for each condition. We conclude that melanized cell walls are considerably less porous than non-melanized cell walls.
authors.affiliation: Research Service, McGuire Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Department of Internal Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA. cmj1006@earthlink.net
authors.forename: Eric S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Jacobson
authors.forename: Reiko
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ikeda
mesh_terms: D002473:Cell Wall / Q000502:physiology*; D002845:Chromatography; D003455:Cryptococcus neoformans / Q000378:metabolism / Q000472:pathogenicity / Q000502:physiology*; D003911:Dextrans / Q000378:metabolism*; D008543:Melanins / Q000378:metabolism*; D010539:Permeability
chemical_list: D003911:Dextrans; D008543:Melanins