Analysis of the dermatophyte Trichophyton rubrum expressed sequence tags.
BACKGROUND
Dermatophytes are the primary causative agent of dermatophytoses, a disease that affects billions of individuals worldwide. Trichophyton rubrum is the most common of the superficial fungi. Although T. rubrum is a recognized pathogen for humans, little is known about how its transcriptional pattern is related to development of the fungus and establishment of disease. It is therefore necessary to identify genes whose expression is relevant to growth, metabolism and virulence of T. rubrum.


RESULTS
We generated 10 cDNA libraries covering nearly the entire growth phase and used them to isolate 11,085 unique expressed sequence tags (ESTs), including 3,816 contigs and 7,269 singletons. Comparisons with the GenBank non-redundant (NR) protein database revealed putative functions or matched homologs from other organisms for 7,764 (70%) of the ESTs. The remaining 3,321 (30%) of ESTs were only weakly similar or not similar to known sequences, suggesting that these ESTs represent novel genes.


CONCLUSIONS
The present data provide a comprehensive view of fungal physiological processes including metabolism, sexual and asexual growth cycles, signal transduction and pathogenic mechanisms.
Wang
Lingling
L
State Key Lab for Molecular Virology and Genetic Engineering, Beijing 100176, China. linda_wing@yahoo.com
Ma
Li
L
Leng
Wenchuan
W
Liu
Tao
T
Yu
Lu
L
Yang
Jian
J
Yang
Li
L
Zhang
Wenliang
W
Zhang
Qian
Q
Dong
Jie
J
Xue
Ying
Y
Zhu
Yafang
Y
Xu
Xingye
X
Wan
Zhe
Z
Ding
Guohui
G
Yu
Fudong
F
Tu
Kang
K
Li
Yixue
Y
Li
Ruoyu
R
Shen
Yan
Y
Jin
Qi
Q
D003883:Arthrodermataceae / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism; D002473:Cell Wall / Q000235:genetics; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D020224:Expressed Sequence Tags / Q000737:chemistry*; D005800:Genes, Fungal / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010447:Peptide Hydrolases / Q000378:metabolism; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D015398:Signal Transduction; D014249:Trichophyton / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism
D010447:Peptide Hydrolases