Table_1_Autophagy Regulates Fungal Virulence and Sexual Reproduction in Cryptococcus neoformans.DOCX

Autophagy (macroautophagy) is an evolutionarily conserved degradation pathway involved in bulk degradation of cytoplasmic organelles, old protein, and other macromolecules and nutrient recycling during starvation. Extensive studies on functions of autophagy-related genes have revealed that autophagy plays a role in cell differentiation and pathogenesis of pathogenic fungi. In this study, we identified and characterized 14 core autophagy machinery genes (ATGs) in C. neoformans. To understand the function of autophagy in virulence and fungal development in C. neoformans, we knocked out the 14 ATGs in both α and a mating type strain backgrounds in C. neoformans, respectively, by using biolistic transformation and in vivo homologous recombination. Fungal virulence assay showed that virulence of each atgΔ mutants was attenuated in a murine inhalation systemic-infection model, although virulence factor production was not dramatically impaired in vitro. Fungal mating assays showed that all the 14 ATGs are essential for fungal sexual reproduction as basidiospore production was blocked in bilateral mating between each atgΔ mutants. Fungal nuclei development assay showed that nuclei in the bilateral mating of each atgΔ mutants failed to undergo meiosis after fusion, indicating autophagy is essential for regulating meiosis during mating. Overall, our study showed that autophagy is essential for fungal virulence and sexual reproduction in C. neoformans, which likely represents a conserved novel virulence and sexual reproduction control mechanism that involves the autophagy-mediated proteolysis pathway.

自噬（宏自噬）是一种在进化上保守的降解途径，涉及细胞质细胞器、衰老蛋白质以及其他大分子和营养物质的降解，以及在饥饿状态下的物质循环。对自噬相关基因功能的广泛研究表明，自噬在细胞分化和病原真菌的致病过程中发挥着作用。在本研究中，我们鉴定并表征了新型隐球菌（C. neoformans）中的14个核心自噬机制基因（ATGs）。为了理解自噬在新型隐球菌的致病性和真菌发育中的作用，我们分别利用基因枪转化和体内同源重组技术，在新型隐球菌的α和α/α交配型菌株背景下敲除了这14个ATGs。真菌致病性检测表明，在体外小鼠吸入系统性感染模型中，每个atgΔ突变体的致病性均有所降低，尽管体外并未显著损害致病因子产生。真菌交配实验显示，在所有14个atgΔ突变体中，双向交配均导致担孢子产生受阻，表明这14个ATGs对于真菌的有性繁殖至关重要。真菌核发育实验表明，在每个atgΔ突变体的双向交配中，融合后的核未能进入减数分裂，表明自噬对于调节交配过程中的减数分裂至关重要。总体而言，我们的研究揭示了自噬对于新型隐球菌的致病性和有性繁殖至关重要，这或许代表了一种保守的新型致病性和有性繁殖调控机制，该机制涉及自噬介导的蛋白质降解途径。