Extracellular Phospholipases as Universal Virulence Factor in Pathogenic Fungi.

Determinants of virulence in the pathogenic fungi.

Bacterial Sphingomyelinases and Phospholipases as Virulence Factors.

Bacterial sphingomyelinases and phospholipases are a heterogeneous group of esterases which are usually surface associated or secreted by a wide variety of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. These enzymes hydrolyze sphingomyelin and glycerophospholipids, respectively, generating products identical to the ones produced by eukaryotic enzymes which play crucial roles in distinct physiologic...

Ras-Mediated Signal Transduction and Virulence in Human Pathogenic Fungi.

Signal transduction pathways regulating growth and stress responses are areas of significant study in the effort to delineate pathogenic mechanisms of fungi. In-depth knowledge of signal transduction events deepens our understanding of how a fungal pathogen is able to sense changes in the environment and respond accordingly by modulation of gene expression and re-organization of cellular activi...

Lipolytic Enzymes Involved in the Virulence of Human Pathogenic Fungi

Pathogenic microbes secrete various enzymes with lipolytic activities to facilitate their survival within the host. Lipolytic enzymes include extracellular lipases and phospholipases, and several lines of evidence have suggested that these enzymes contribute to the virulence of pathogenic fungi. Candida albicans and Cryptococcus neoformans are the most commonly isolated human fungal pathogens, ...

Short Rotations in Forest Plantations Accelerate Virulence Evolution in Root-Rot Pathogenic Fungi

As disease outbreaks in forest plantations are causing concern worldwide, a clear understanding of the influence of silvicultural practices on the development of epidemics is still lacking. Importantly, silvicultural practices are likely to simultaneously affect epidemiological and evolutionary dynamics of pathogen populations. We propose a genetically explicit and individual-based model of vir...