Taxonomic group: fungi / Basidiomycota
(Phylum: Basidiomycota)
Organ / tissue: cell wallAssociated disease: infection due to Cryptococcus neoformans [ICD11:
XN3EH 
]
The structure was elucidated in this paperNCBI PubMed ID: 17114598Publication DOI: 10.1128/EC.00318-06Journal NLM ID: 101130731Publisher: American Society for Microbiology
Correspondence: Arturo Casadevall <casadeva
aecom.yu.edu>
Institutions: Servicio de Micología, Centro Nacional de Microbiología, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain, Laboratório de Estudos Integrados em Bioquímica Microbiana, Instituto de Microbiologia Professor Paulo de Góes, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, NY, USA, Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, NY, USA, Laboratório de Ultraestrutura Celular Hertha Meyer, Instituto de Biofísica Carlos Chagas Filho, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
The mechanisms by which macromolecules are transported through the cell wall of fungi are not known. A central question in the biology of Cryptococcus neoformans, the causative agent of cryptococcosis, is the mechanism by which capsular polysaccharide synthesized inside the cell is exported to the extracellular environment for capsule assembly and release. We demonstrate that C. neoformans produces extracellular vesicles during in vitro growth and animal infection. Vesicular compartments, which are transferred to the extracellular space by cell wall passage, contain glucuronoxylomannan (GXM), a component of the cryptococcal capsule, and key lipids, such as glucosylceramide and sterols. A correlation between GXM-containing vesicles and capsule expression was observed. The results imply a novel mechanism for the release of the major virulence factor of C. neoformans whereby polysaccharide packaged in lipid vesicles crosses the cell wall and the capsule network to reach the extracellular environment.
capsular polysaccharides, lipid, Cryptococcus neoformans, cryptococcosis, vesicles
Structure type: monomer
Location inside paper: Fig.2, B
Compound class: cerebroside
Contained glycoepitopes: IEDB_137339,IEDB_142488,IEDB_146664,IEDB_983931,SB_192,SB_5
Methods: ELISA, ESI-MS, biological assays, serological methods, affinity chromatography, HPTLC, CC, transmission electron microscopy, cell growth, cell viability assay, centrifugation
Comments, role: In Figure 2, the mass spectra of B and C are mistakenly interchanged, since the difference in the mass of molecular ions is inverse to the composition of substances; the lipid names are also do not correspond to structures.
Related record ID(s): 44023
NCBI Taxonomy refs (TaxIDs): 40410,
235443,
178876,
5207
Show glycosyltransferases
There is only one chemically distinct structure:
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(later renamed to: Cryptococcus neoformans var. neoformans ATCC 24067)