Taxonomic group: fungi / Ascomycota, Basidiomycota
(Phylum: Ascomycota, Basidiomycota)
Organ / tissue: cell wallAssociated disease: infection due to Cryptococcus neoformans [ICD11:
XN3EH 
]
NCBI PubMed ID: 33271921Publication DOI: 10.3390/jof6040329Journal NLM ID: 101671827Publisher: Basel, Switzerland: MDPI AG
Correspondence: Neiman AM <aaron.neiman
stonybrook.edu>; Stark RE <rstark
ccny.cuny.edu>
Institutions: Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA, CUNY Institute for Macromolecular Assemblies, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The City College of New York, New York, USA, Ph.D. Program in Biochemistry, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York, NY, USA, Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, USA
The fungal cell wall serves as the interface between the cell and the environment. Fungal cell walls are composed largely of polysaccharides, primarily glucans and chitin, though in many fungi stress-resistant cell types elaborate additional cell wall structures. Here, we use solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to compare the architecture of cell wall fractions isolated from Saccharomyces cerevisiae spores and Cryptococcus neoformans melanized cells. The specialized cell walls of these two divergent fungi are highly similar in composition. Both use chitosan, the deacetylated derivative of chitin, as a scaffold on which a polyaromatic polymer, dityrosine and melanin, respectively, is assembled. Additionally, we demonstrate that a previously identified but uncharacterized component of the S. cerevisiae spore wall is composed of triglycerides, which are also present in the C. neoformans melanized cell wall. Moreover, we identify a tyrosine-derived constituent in the C. neoformans wall that, although it is not dityrosine, is a non-pigment constituent of the cell wall. The similar composition of the walls of these two phylogenetically distant species suggests that triglycerides, polyaromatics, and chitosan are basic building blocks used to assemble highly stress-resistant cell walls and the use of these constituents may be broadly conserved in other fungal species.
chitosan, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, chitin, fungal cell wall, Cryptococcus neoformans, melanin, solid-state NMR, macromolecular assembly, dityrosine, triglycerides
Structure type: structural motif or average structure
Location inside paper: Fig. 2, chitosan
Trivial name: chitosan
Compound class: O-polysaccharide, cell wall polysaccharide, glucan, polysaccharide
Contained glycoepitopes: IEDB_135813,IEDB_137340,IEDB_141807,IEDB_151531,IEDB_153212,IEDB_241099,IEDB_423114,IEDB_423150,SB_74,SB_85
Methods: enzymatic digestion, isotopic labeling, cell growth, delipidation, centrifugation, hydrolysis, 13C CPMAS NMR, 13C-13C DARR NMR
Related record ID(s): 44877, 44886, 46311, 46570, 46683, 48760, 48774, 49133, 49502, 49512, 49524, 49653, 50016, 50301, 50303, 50304, 50307, 50308, 50309, 50311, 50314, 50315, 50317, 50319, 50320
NCBI Taxonomy refs (TaxIDs): 4932,
235443Reference(s) to other database(s): GTC:G97099AY
Show glycosyltransferases
There is only one chemically distinct structure:
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