Transcriptome response of Aspergillus fumigatus cultures under different temperatures

Microarray analysis was used to compare gene expression of Aspergillus fumigatus under two different sporulation temperatures, 17oC and 32oC, with an emphasis on genes encoding known or putative allergens of the fungus. The objective of the study was to investigate whether allergenic potencies of A. fumigatus spores produced under different sporulation temperatures would be influenced by temperature-dependent transcriptional regulation of allergenicity genes. Non-sporulating liquid culture of Aspergillus fumigatus was harvested and divided equally onto two sets of potato dextrose agar plates, one set for incubation at 17oC, the other for incubation at 32oC. After 48 hours of incubation, RNA was harvested from both sets of sporulating cultures, reverse-transcribed into dye-coupled cDNA and hybridized onto microarrays for analysis of gene expression. For each experiment, extracted RNA from the two cultures were hybridized onto two dye-swap technical replicate arrays. A total of three separate experiments were conducted for biological triplicates, for a total of six hybridizations.