{"title":"Emerging roles of SWI/SNF remodelers in fungal pathogens.","authors":"Vinutha K Balachandra, Santanu K Ghosh","doi":"10.1007/s00294-021-01219-7","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Fungal pathogens constantly sense and respond to the environment they inhabit, and this interaction is vital for their survival inside hosts and exhibiting pathogenic traits. Since such responses often entail specific patterns of gene expression, regulators of chromatin structure contribute to the fitness and virulence of the pathogens by modulating DNA accessibility to the transcriptional machinery. Recent studies in several human and plant fungal pathogens have uncovered the SWI/SNF group of chromatin remodelers as an important determinant of pathogenic traits and provided insights into their mechanism of function. Here, we review these studies and highlight the differential functions of these remodeling complexes and their subunits in regulating fungal fitness and pathogenicity. As an extension of our previous study, we also show that loss of specific RSC subunits can predispose the human fungal pathogen Candida albicans cells to filamentous growth in a context-dependent manner. Finally, we consider the potential of targeting the fungal SWI/SNF remodeling complexes for antifungal interventions.</p>","PeriodicalId":10918,"journal":{"name":"Current Genetics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8000,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Current Genetics","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00294-021-01219-7","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2022/1/10 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"GENETICS & HEREDITY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Fungal pathogens constantly sense and respond to the environment they inhabit, and this interaction is vital for their survival inside hosts and exhibiting pathogenic traits. Since such responses often entail specific patterns of gene expression, regulators of chromatin structure contribute to the fitness and virulence of the pathogens by modulating DNA accessibility to the transcriptional machinery. Recent studies in several human and plant fungal pathogens have uncovered the SWI/SNF group of chromatin remodelers as an important determinant of pathogenic traits and provided insights into their mechanism of function. Here, we review these studies and highlight the differential functions of these remodeling complexes and their subunits in regulating fungal fitness and pathogenicity. As an extension of our previous study, we also show that loss of specific RSC subunits can predispose the human fungal pathogen Candida albicans cells to filamentous growth in a context-dependent manner. Finally, we consider the potential of targeting the fungal SWI/SNF remodeling complexes for antifungal interventions.
期刊介绍:
Current Genetics publishes genetic, genomic, molecular and systems-level analysis of eukaryotic and prokaryotic microorganisms and cell organelles. All articles are peer-reviewed. The journal welcomes submissions employing any type of research approach, be it analytical (aiming at a better understanding), applied (aiming at practical applications), synthetic or theoretical.
Current Genetics no longer accepts manuscripts describing the genome sequence of mitochondria/chloroplast of a small number of species. Manuscripts covering sequence comparisons and analyses that include a large number of species will still be considered.