Fungal shape-shifting

van Ooij, Christiaan

doi:10.1038/nrmicro2024

Research Highlight
Published: November 2008

Fungal Biology

Fungal shape-shifting

Christiaan van Ooij

Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 6, page 797 (2008)Cite this article

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The switch from hyphal to yeast forms can be recapitulated by shifting the temperature from room temperature to 37°C, the temperature of the mammalian host. The authors took advantage of the distinct appearance of hyphal- and yeast-form colonies to identify mutants that are unable to grow in the yeast form at 37°C. The deficient genes in these mutants, the hyphae of which grew independently of temperature, were named RYP2 and RYP3. In wild-type cells, both RYP2 and RYP3 are more highly expressed at 37°C than at room temperature.

When grown at room temperature, the ryp2 and ryp3 mutant hyphae produced spores at a higher frequency than wild-type cells. Many of the mutant spores were not viable and appeared to lyse easily, indicating that Ryp2 and Ryp3 are required for production of viable spores, the most common infectious particle. Those mutant spores that were viable germinated into hyphae after ingestion by macrophages, unlike wild-type spores, which germinate into yeast forms after phagocytosis.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

Webster, R. H. & Sil, A. Conserved factors Ryp2 and Ryp3 control cell morphology and infectious spore formation in the fungal pathogen Histoplasma capsulatum. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 105, 14573–14578 (2008)
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