Carbo-loading in fungal lung pathogens: a quantitative analysis of CAZyme abundance and resulting glycan populations

Herein we i) identify Coccidioides spp.-specific CAZymes by bioinformatically comparing the CAZyme repertoire (CAZome) of Coccidioides spp. to other common fungal lung pathogens and a non-pathogenic close fungal relative, ii) experimentally evaluate Coccidioides spp. CAZyme abundance in vivo and in vitro, and iii) identify Coccidioides genus-specific N-glycans by experimentally determining the N-glycan population (N-glycome) of Coccidioides-infected lung tissues using tandem mass spectrometry. As far as we are aware, this is the first use of mass spectrometry to compare the N-glycomes and CAZomes of different fungal genera during infection in human hosts.