Infection and Immunity
Infection and Immunity
5 years ago

Overexpression of Candida albicans Secreted Aspartyl Proteinases 2 or 5 is not sufficient for exacerbation of immunopathology in a murine model of vaginitis.

Bruner WS, Willems HME, Liu J, Palmer GE, Peters BM, Barker KS
The secreted aspartyl protineases of C. albicans have long been implicated in virulence at the mucosal surface, including contribution to colonization and immunopathogenesis during vulvovaginal candidiasis. In an effort to disentangle hypha-associated virulence factor regulation from morphological transition, the purpose of this study was to determine if overexpression of SAP2 or SAP5 in a efg1Δ/Δ/cph1Δ/Δ mutant could restore capacity to cause immunopathology during murine vaginitis to this avirulent hypofilamentous strain. Two similar, yet distinct, genetic approaches were used to construct expression vectors to achieve SAP overexpression and both genetic and functional assays confirmed elevated SAP activity in transformed strains. Similar to previous findings, intravaginal challenge of C57Bl/6 mice with hypha-defective strains attained high levels of mucosal colonization but failed to induce robust vaginal immunopathology (neutrophil recruitment, IL-1β secretion, lactate dehydrogenase release) as compared to the hypha-competent control. Moreover, constitutive expression of SAP2 or SAP5 in two distinct sets of such strains did not elicit immunopathological markers above that observed during challenge with isogenic empty-vector controls. Therefore, these results suggest that physiological contribution of SAPs to vaginal immunopathology require hypha formation, other hypha-associated factors, or genetic interaction with EFG1 and/or CPH1 to cause symptomatic infection. Additionally, the outlined expression strategy and strain sets will be useful for decoupling other downstream morphogenetic factors from hyphal growth.

Publisher URL: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28760935

DOI: PubMed:28760935

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