-
Journal of Clinical Microbiology Jul 2019Global data on the epidemiology and susceptibility of are crucial in the management of invasive aspergillosis. Here, we aimed to determine the characteristics of... (Comparative Study)
Comparative Study
Global data on the epidemiology and susceptibility of are crucial in the management of invasive aspergillosis. Here, we aimed to determine the characteristics of clinical and environmental isolates, focusing mainly on hematologic malignancy patients. We prospectively collected all consecutive cases and clinical isolates of culture-positive proven/probable invasive aspergillosis patients from January 2016 to April 2018 and sampled the air inside and outside the hospital. Cryptic species-level identification of , antifungal susceptibilities, and gene sequencing were performed, and clinical data were analyzed. This study was conducted as part of the tholic Hematology Hospital ungi pidemiology (CAFÉ) study. A total of 207 proven/probable invasive aspergillosis and 102 clinical and 129 environmental isolates were included in this analysis. The incidence of proven/probable invasive aspergillosis was 1.3 cases/1,000 patient-days during the study period. Cryptic species accounted for 33.8%, with no differences in proportions between the clinical and environmental isolates. Section presented a high proportion (70.5%) of cryptic species, mainly from and : the former being dominant in environmental samples, and the latter being more common in clinical isolates ( < 0.001). Of 91 isolates, azole-resistant was found in 5.3% of all isolates. Three isolates presented the TR/L98H mutation of the gene. Patients with invasive aspergillosis caused by azole-resistant showed 100% all-cause mortality at 100 days. This study demonstrates the significant portion of cryptic species and clinical implications of azole resistance and underscores the comparison between clinical and environmental isolates.
Topics: Antifungal Agents; Aspergillosis; Aspergillus; Aspergillus fumigatus; Drug Resistance, Fungal; Environmental Microbiology; Genes, Bacterial; Hematologic Neoplasms; Humans; Invasive Fungal Infections; Microbial Sensitivity Tests; Mutation; Prospective Studies; Republic of Korea
PubMed: 31018982
DOI: 10.1128/JCM.02023-18 -
PloS One 2021A predicted metalloproteinase gene, HypZn, was cloned from Aspergillus niger CGMCC 3.7193 and expressed in Pichia pastoris GS115, and the physicochemical characteristics...
A predicted metalloproteinase gene, HypZn, was cloned from Aspergillus niger CGMCC 3.7193 and expressed in Pichia pastoris GS115, and the physicochemical characteristics of recombinant HypZn were investigated after separation and purification. The results showed that the specific activity of the purified HypZn reached 1859.2 U/mg, and the optimum temperature and pH value of HypZn were 35°C and 7.0, respectively. HypZn remained stable both at 40°C and at pH values between 5.0 and 8.0. The preferred substrate of HypZn was soybean protein isolates, and the Km and Vmax values were 21.5 μmol/mL and 4926.6 μmol/(mL∙min), respectively. HypZn was activated by Co2+ and Zn2+ and inhibited by Cu2+ and Fe2+. The degree of soybean protein isolate hydrolysis reached 14.7%, and the hydrolysates were of uniform molecular weight. HypZn could tolerate 5000 mM NaCl and completely lost its activity after 30 min at 50°C. The enzymological characterizations indicated that HypZn has great application potential in the food industry, especially in fermented food processing.
Topics: Aspergillus niger; Hydrolysis; Metalloproteases
PubMed: 34762700
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0259809 -
Poultry Science May 2022Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus fumigatus were derived and identified from the ducks infected with fungi. In order to investigate the effectiveness of Chinese herbal...
Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus fumigatus were derived and identified from the ducks infected with fungi. In order to investigate the effectiveness of Chinese herbal medicines against Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus fumigatus, in vitro antibacterial test and animal infection control test were conducted to study the antibacterial activity of the Chinese medicine mixture which was compatible with Acorus gramineus, Phellodendron chinensis, and Cassia obtusifolia. According to the results, the liver of chickens infected with Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus fumigatus displayed granulomatous lesions, indicating that the isolation of pathogen from the lungs of sick ducks is also pathogenic to chickens. As suggested by the results of in vitro drug sensitivity test, the mixture 1 MIC was the minimum, the MIC of Aspergillus flavus was 16 μg/μL, and the MIC of Aspergillus fumigatus was 4 μg/μL. In a petri dish of the same concentration, the colony diameter of Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus fumigatus in Mixture 1 was the minimum. Besides, Aspergillus flavus colonies grew when the concentration was 64 μg/μL, and Aspergillus fumigatus colonies grew when the concentration was 4 μg/μL, which suggests the more significant inhibitory effect of Mixture 1 on Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus fumigatus. According to the results of animal experiments, there was a significantly lower activity level of Glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (GOT) and Glutamate pyruvic transaminase (GPT) in the protection group and the treatment group than in the bacterial infection group. As indicated by the blood smear results, there were more neutrophils in the infected group than in the prevention group and the treatment group. Thus, it can be seen from that the Mixture 1 produced preventive and therapeutic effects on the chickens infected with Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus fumigatus.
Topics: Animals; Anti-Bacterial Agents; Aspergillus flavus; Aspergillus fumigatus; Chickens; Drugs, Chinese Herbal; Ducks; Female
PubMed: 35367690
DOI: 10.1016/j.psj.2022.101756 -
Revista Da Associacao Medica Brasileira... 2023The aim of this study was to evaluate the demographic data, molecular epidemiology, and in vitro antifungal susceptibility results of patients with Aspergillus isolated...
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to evaluate the demographic data, molecular epidemiology, and in vitro antifungal susceptibility results of patients with Aspergillus isolated from various clinical specimens.
METHODS
A total of 44 Aspergillus strains were studied. The definition of invasive aspergillosis in patients was made according to European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer/Invasive Fungal Infections Cooperative Group and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Mycoses Study Group (EORTC/MSG) criteria. Strains were phenotypically and molecularly identified. Demographic characteristics of patients and genotypes of strains were evaluated. Phylogenetic analysis was done by the The Unweighted Pair-Group Method with Arithmetic Mean (UPGMA). Antifungal susceptibility of strains was determined according to The Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI)-M61-Ed2 and The European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (EUCAST).
RESULTS
A total of 11 patients were classified as proven and 33 as probable invasive aspergillosis. There was a statistically significant difference in age groups, subdisease, neutropenic, and receiving chemotherapy between groups. A total of 23 strains were identified as Aspergillus fumigatus, 12 as Aspergillus niger, 6 as Aspergillus flavus, and 3 as Aspergillus terreus. Phylogenetic analysis revealed five different genotypes. No statistical difference was found in the comparisons between patients groups and genotype groups. There was a statistically significant difference between genotype groups and voriconazole, posaconazole, and itraconazole Minimum Inhibition Concentration (MIC).
CONCLUSION
Accurate identification of strains and antifungal susceptibility studies should be performed due to azole and amphotericin B resistance. Genotyping studies are important in infection control due to identifying sources of infection and transmission routes.
Topics: Humans; Antifungal Agents; Molecular Epidemiology; Phylogeny; Aspergillosis; Aspergillus; Invasive Fungal Infections
PubMed: 36820712
DOI: 10.1590/1806-9282.20220441 -
PloS One 2020Bat caves are very special roosts that harbour thousands of bats of one or more species. Such sites may hold an incredible "dark fungal diversity" which is still...
Bat caves are very special roosts that harbour thousands of bats of one or more species. Such sites may hold an incredible "dark fungal diversity" which is still underestimated. We explored the culturable fungal richness in the air, on bats, and in the guano in a bat cave in Brazil's Caatinga dry forest. Fungal abundance was 683 colony-forming units (CFU) in the guano, 673 CFU in the air, and 105 CFU on the bats. Based on morphological and phylogenetic analysis of ITS, LSU, and TUB2 sequences, fungal isolates of 59 taxa belonging to 37 genera in the phyla Ascomycota (28 genera, including Aspergillus, Penicillium, Cladosporium, and Talaromyces), Basidiomycota (eight genera, including Rhodotorula and Schizophyllum), and Mucoromycota (only Rhizopus) were identified. The fungal richness in the air was 23 taxa (especially Aspergillus taxa), mainly found at 15 m and 45 m from the cave entrance; on the bodies of bats it was 36 taxa (mainly Aspergillus taxa), especially on their wing membranes (21 taxa, nine of which were exclusively found in this microhabitat); and in guano 10 fungal taxa (especially Aspergillus and Penicillium) were found. The fungal richness associated with guano (fresh and non-fresh) was similar from bats with different eating habits (insectivorous, frugivorous, and haematophagous). Sampling effort was not sufficient to reveal the total fungal taxa richness estimated. Eight (21.6%) of the 37 genera and 17 (53.1%) of the 32 identified fungal species are reported for the first time in caves. Our results highlight bat caves in Brazil as hotspots of fungal diversity, emphasizing the need to protect such special roosts.
Topics: Animals; Ascomycota; Aspergillus; Basidiomycota; Brazil; Caves; Chiroptera; DNA, Ribosomal; Phylogeny
PubMed: 33275627
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0243494 -
BMC Microbiology Nov 2020Members of the genus Aspergillus display a variety of lifestyles, ranging from saprobic to pathogenic on plants and/or animals. Increased genome sequencing of...
BACKGROUND
Members of the genus Aspergillus display a variety of lifestyles, ranging from saprobic to pathogenic on plants and/or animals. Increased genome sequencing of economically important members of the genus permits effective use of "-omics" comparisons between closely related species and strains to identify candidate genes that may contribute to phenotypes of interest, especially relating to pathogenicity. Protein-coding genes were predicted from 216 genomes of 12 Aspergillus species, and the frequencies of various structural aspects (exon count and length, intron count and length, GC content, and codon usage) and functional annotations (InterPro, Gene Ontology, and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes terms) were compared.
RESULTS
Using principal component analyses, the three sets of functional annotations for each strain were clustered by species. The species clusters appeared to separate by pathogenicity on plants along the first dimensions, which accounted for over 20% of the variance. More annotations for genes encoding pectinases and secondary metabolite biosynthetic enzymes were assigned to phytopathogenic strains from species such as Aspergillus flavus. In contrast, Aspergillus fumigatus strains, which are pathogenic to animals but not plants, were assigned relatively more terms related to phosphate transferases, and carbohydrate and amino-sugar metabolism. Analyses of publicly available RNA-Seq data indicated that one A. fumigatus protein among 17 amino-sugar processing candidates, a hexokinase, was up-regulated during co-culturing with human immune system cells.
CONCLUSION
Genes encoding hexokinases and other proteins of interest may be subject to future manipulations to further refine understanding of Aspergillus pathogenicity factors.
Topics: Animals; Aspergillus; Genes, Fungal; Genome, Fungal; Hexokinase; Humans; Molecular Sequence Annotation; Plant Diseases; Virulence Factors
PubMed: 33176679
DOI: 10.1186/s12866-020-02031-y -
Marine Drugs Jan 2020Nitrogen heterocycles have drawn considerable attention due to of their significant biological activities. The marine fungi residing in extreme environments are among... (Review)
Review
Nitrogen heterocycles have drawn considerable attention due to of their significant biological activities. The marine fungi residing in extreme environments are among the richest sources of these basic nitrogen-containing secondary metabolites. As one of the most well-known universal groups of filamentous fungi, marine-derived species produce a large number of structurally unique heterocyclic alkaloids. This review attempts to provide a comprehensive summary of the structural diversity and biological activities of heterocyclic alkaloids that are produced by marine-derived species. Herein, a total of 130 such structures that were reported from the beginning of 2014 through the end of 2018 are included, and 75 references are cited in this review, which will benefit future drug development and innovation.
Topics: Alkaloids; Aquatic Organisms; Aspergillus; Biological Products; Humans; Seawater
PubMed: 31947564
DOI: 10.3390/md18010054 -
International Journal of Molecular... Apr 2022The Never in mitosis gene A (NIMA) family of serine/threonine kinases is a diverse group of protein kinases implicated in a wide variety of cellular processes, including... (Review)
Review
The Never in mitosis gene A (NIMA) family of serine/threonine kinases is a diverse group of protein kinases implicated in a wide variety of cellular processes, including cilia regulation, microtubule dynamics, mitotic processes, cell growth, and DNA damage response. The founding member of this family was initially identified in and was found to play important roles in mitosis and cell division. The yeast family has one member each, Fin1p in fission yeast and Kin3p in budding yeast, also with functions in mitotic processes, but, overall, these are poorly studied kinases. The mammalian family, the main focus of this review, consists of 11 members named Nek1 to Nek11. With the exception of a few members, the functions of the mammalian Neks are poorly understood but appear to be quite diverse. Like the prototypical NIMA, many members appear to play important roles in mitosis and meiosis, but their functions in the cell go well beyond these well-established activities. In this review, we explore the roles of fungal and mammalian NIMA kinases and highlight the most recent findings in the field.
Topics: Animals; Aspergillus; Cell Cycle Proteins; Mammals; Mitosis; NIMA-Related Kinase 1; Protein Kinases; Saccharomyces cerevisiae; Schizosaccharomyces
PubMed: 35409400
DOI: 10.3390/ijms23074041 -
G3 (Bethesda, Md.) Jan 2023The fungal genus Aspergillus contains a diversity of species divided into taxonomic sections of closely related species. Section Flavi contains 33 species, many of...
The fungal genus Aspergillus contains a diversity of species divided into taxonomic sections of closely related species. Section Flavi contains 33 species, many of industrial, agricultural, or medical relevance. Here, we analyze the mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes) of 20 Flavi species-including 18 newly assembled mitogenomes-and compare their evolutionary history and codon usage bias patterns to their nuclear counterparts. Codon usage bias refers to variable frequencies of synonymous codons in coding DNA and is shaped by a balance of neutral processes and natural selection. All mitogenomes were circular DNA molecules with highly conserved gene content and order. As expected, genomic content, including GC content, and genome size differed greatly between mitochondrial and nuclear genomes. Phylogenetic analysis based on 14 concatenated mitochondrial genes predicted evolutionary relationships largely consistent with those predicted by a phylogeny constructed from 2,422 nuclear genes. Comparing similarities in interspecies patterns of codon usage bias between mitochondrial and nuclear genomes showed that species grouped differently by patterns of codon usage bias depending on whether analyses were performed using mitochondrial or nuclear relative synonymous usage values. We found that patterns of codon usage bias at gene level are more similar between mitogenomes of different species than the mitogenome and nuclear genome of the same species. Finally, we inferred that, although most genes-both nuclear and mitochondrial-deviated from the neutral expectation for codon usage, mitogenomes were not under translational selection while nuclear genomes were under moderate translational selection. These results contribute to the study of mitochondrial genome evolution in filamentous fungi.
Topics: Codon Usage; Phylogeny; Codon; Genomics; Genome, Mitochondrial; Aspergillus
PubMed: 36305682
DOI: 10.1093/g3journal/jkac285 -
Journal of Natural Products Oct 2022Fungal natural products comprise a wide range of bioactive compounds including important drugs and agrochemicals. Intriguingly, bioinformatic analyses of fungal genomes... (Review)
Review
Fungal natural products comprise a wide range of bioactive compounds including important drugs and agrochemicals. Intriguingly, bioinformatic analyses of fungal genomes have revealed that fungi have the potential to produce significantly more natural products than what have been discovered so far. It has thus become widely accepted that most biosynthesis pathways of fungal natural products are silent or expressed at very low levels under laboratory cultivation conditions. To tap into this vast chemical reservoir, the reconstitution of entire biosynthetic pathways in genetically tractable fungal hosts (total heterologous biosynthesis) has become increasingly employed in recent years. This review summarizes total heterologous biosynthesis of fungal natural products accomplished before 2020 using as heterologous hosts. We review here transformation, hosts, shuttle vectors for episomal expression, and chromosomal integration expression. These tools, collectively, not only facilitate the discovery of cryptic natural products but can also be used to generate high-yield strains with clean metabolite backgrounds. In comparison with total synthesis, total heterologous biosynthesis offers a simplified strategy to construct complex molecules and holds potential for commercial application.
Topics: Aspergillus nidulans; Biological Products; Genes, Fungal; Biosynthetic Pathways; Genome, Fungal; Multigene Family
PubMed: 36173392
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jnatprod.2c00487