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Infection and Immunity, September 2009, p. 4051-4060, Vol. 77, No. 9
0019-9567/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/IAI.00426-09
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Transcription Factor PrtT Controls Expression of Multiple Secreted Proteases in the Human Pathogenic Mold Aspergillus fumigatus{triangledown} ,{dagger}

Haim Sharon,{ddagger} Shelly Hagag,{ddagger} and Nir Osherov*

Department of Human Microbiology, Sackler School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv 69978, Tel-Aviv, Israel

Received 16 April 2009/ Returned for modification 19 May 2009/ Accepted 17 June 2009

The role of secreted proteases in the virulence of the pathogenic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus remains controversial. Recently, the Aspergillus niger transcription factor PrtT was shown to control the expression of multiple secreted proteases. In this work, the gene which encodes the PrtT homolog in A. fumigatus was cloned and its function analyzed using a deletion mutant strain. Deletion of A. fumigatus prtT resulted in the loss of secreted protease activity. The expression of six secreted proteases (ALP, MEP, Dpp4, CpdS, AFUA_2G17330, and AFUA_7G06220) was markedly reduced. Culture filtrates from the prtT deletion strain exhibited reduced killing of lung epithelial cells and lysis of erythrocytes. However, the prtT deletion strain did not exhibit altered virulence in lung-infected mice. These results suggest that PrtT is not a significant virulence factor in A. fumigatus.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Human Microbiology, Sackler School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv 69978, Tel-Aviv, Israel. Phone: 972-3-640-9599. Fax: 972-3-640-9160. E-mail: nosherov{at}post.tau.ac.il

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 29 June 2009.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://iai.asm.org/.

Editor: A. Casadevall

{ddagger} These authors contributed equally to this work.

Infection and Immunity, September 2009, p. 4051-4060, Vol. 77, No. 9
0019-9567/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/IAI.00426-09
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.





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