Effect of Calorie Restriction in the Congenic Mating Types of Cryptococcus neoformans

Cryptococcus neoformans (Cn) is an opportunistic fungal microorganism that causes life-threatening meningoencephalitis. Calorie restriction is an intervention that extends the lifespan of Cn. The mating types of Cn have striking differences in prevalence in both environmental and clinical settings. This is hypothesized to be due to differences in stress responses between mating types. Using RNAseq, we investigated how the two mating types respond to the stress of starvation during calorie restriction. Overall design: For this analysis, KN99alpha and KN99a were grown overnight in SM media containing 2% glucose and calorie restriction (CR) media containing 0.05% glucose. The RNA was isolated using a QIAGEN Rneasy kit. Then the transcriptome was analyzed for differentially expressed genes.