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Virulence Traits and Population Genomics of the Black Yeast Aureobasidium melanogenum

The black yeast-like fungus Aureobasidium melanogenum is an opportunistic human pathogen frequently found indoors. Its traits, potentially linked to pathogenesis, have never been systematically studied. Here, we examine 49 A. melanogenum strains for growth at 37 °C, siderophore production, hemolytic...

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Autores principales: Černoša, Anja, Sun, Xiaohuan, Gostinčar, Cene, Fang, Chao, Gunde-Cimerman, Nina, Song, Zewei
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8401163/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34436204
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jof7080665
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author Černoša, Anja
Sun, Xiaohuan
Gostinčar, Cene
Fang, Chao
Gunde-Cimerman, Nina
Song, Zewei
author_facet Černoša, Anja
Sun, Xiaohuan
Gostinčar, Cene
Fang, Chao
Gunde-Cimerman, Nina
Song, Zewei
author_sort Černoša, Anja
collection PubMed
description The black yeast-like fungus Aureobasidium melanogenum is an opportunistic human pathogen frequently found indoors. Its traits, potentially linked to pathogenesis, have never been systematically studied. Here, we examine 49 A. melanogenum strains for growth at 37 °C, siderophore production, hemolytic activity, and assimilation of hydrocarbons and human neurotransmitters and report within-species variability. All but one strain grew at 37 °C. All strains produced siderophores and showed some hemolytic activity. The largest differences between strains were observed in the assimilation of hydrocarbons and human neurotransmitters. We show for the first time that fungi from the order Dothideales can assimilate aromatic hydrocarbons. To explain the background, we sequenced the genomes of all 49 strains and identified genes putatively involved in siderophore production and hemolysis. Genomic analysis revealed a fairly structured population of A. melanogenum, raising the possibility that some phylogenetic lineages have higher virulence potential than others. Population genomics indicated that the species is strictly clonal, although more than half of the genomes were diploid. The existence of relatively heterozygous diploids in an otherwise clonal species is described for only the second time in fungi. The genomic and phenotypic data from this study should help to resolve the non-trivial taxonomy of the genus Aureobasidium and reduce the medical hazards of exploiting the biotechnological potential of other, non-pathogenic species of this genus.
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spelling pubmed-84011632021-08-29 Virulence Traits and Population Genomics of the Black Yeast Aureobasidium melanogenum Černoša, Anja Sun, Xiaohuan Gostinčar, Cene Fang, Chao Gunde-Cimerman, Nina Song, Zewei J Fungi (Basel) Article The black yeast-like fungus Aureobasidium melanogenum is an opportunistic human pathogen frequently found indoors. Its traits, potentially linked to pathogenesis, have never been systematically studied. Here, we examine 49 A. melanogenum strains for growth at 37 °C, siderophore production, hemolytic activity, and assimilation of hydrocarbons and human neurotransmitters and report within-species variability. All but one strain grew at 37 °C. All strains produced siderophores and showed some hemolytic activity. The largest differences between strains were observed in the assimilation of hydrocarbons and human neurotransmitters. We show for the first time that fungi from the order Dothideales can assimilate aromatic hydrocarbons. To explain the background, we sequenced the genomes of all 49 strains and identified genes putatively involved in siderophore production and hemolysis. Genomic analysis revealed a fairly structured population of A. melanogenum, raising the possibility that some phylogenetic lineages have higher virulence potential than others. Population genomics indicated that the species is strictly clonal, although more than half of the genomes were diploid. The existence of relatively heterozygous diploids in an otherwise clonal species is described for only the second time in fungi. The genomic and phenotypic data from this study should help to resolve the non-trivial taxonomy of the genus Aureobasidium and reduce the medical hazards of exploiting the biotechnological potential of other, non-pathogenic species of this genus. MDPI 2021-08-16 /pmc/articles/PMC8401163/ /pubmed/34436204 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jof7080665 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Černoša, Anja
Sun, Xiaohuan
Gostinčar, Cene
Fang, Chao
Gunde-Cimerman, Nina
Song, Zewei
Virulence Traits and Population Genomics of the Black Yeast Aureobasidium melanogenum
title Virulence Traits and Population Genomics of the Black Yeast Aureobasidium melanogenum
title_full Virulence Traits and Population Genomics of the Black Yeast Aureobasidium melanogenum
title_fullStr Virulence Traits and Population Genomics of the Black Yeast Aureobasidium melanogenum
title_full_unstemmed Virulence Traits and Population Genomics of the Black Yeast Aureobasidium melanogenum
title_short Virulence Traits and Population Genomics of the Black Yeast Aureobasidium melanogenum
title_sort virulence traits and population genomics of the black yeast aureobasidium melanogenum
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8401163/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34436204
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jof7080665
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