Trichophyton rubrum expressed genes during ex vivo infection of skin and nails.

PERES NT; GRAS DE; SANCHES PR; FALCÃO JP; ROCHA LB; ROSSI MA; MAZUCATO M; ROSSI A; PRADE RA; MARTINEZ-ROSSI NM

Asilomar

Conferencia; 25th Fungal Genetics Conference at Asilomar; 2009

Genetics Society of America

Host-fungal interactions are dynamic and complex, and in order to identify new fungal targets and develop more effective antifungal therapies, it is important to understand cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in the infection process. The most prevalent fungal infections in immunocompetent individuals are the dermatophytosis, mainly caused by Trichophyton rubrum. For a better understanding of T. rubrum host interactions, we developed an ex vivo skin infection system and used the suppressive subtraction hybridization approach to identify T. rubrum genes involved in fungal-skin interaction. Variation in expression levels of candidate genes during skin infection, and also after nail and keratin growth, was analyzed on a set of selected genes. The identification of pathogen genes expressed during infection is a crucial step in exploring the molecular mechanisms contributing to the pathogenicity of T. rubrum. Moreover, the differentially expressed genes identified here are potential targets for further molecular studies of virulence, using an experimental infection model.