TY - JOUR
T1 - Variation in cell surface hydrophobicity among Cryptococcus neoformans strains influences interactions with amoebas
AU - Vij, Raghav
AU - Danchik, Carina
AU - Crawford, Conor
AU - Dragotakes, Quigly
AU - Casadevall, Arturo
N1 - Funding Information:
A.C. is supported by grants HL059842, AI052733, and AI152078. C.C. was funded by an Irish Research Council postgraduate award (GOIPG/2016/998). Special thanks to Jennifer K. Lodge at Department of Molecular Microbiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, for generously gifting us with the cda knockout strains. Special thanks to Radames J. B. Cordero for valuable discussions of experimental design and edits to the manuscript and to Daniel F. Q. Smith for the valuable contribution of editing the figures. R.V. designed and conducted the experiments, analyzed the data, and wrote the manuscript. C.C. performed computation and theoretical analysis and wrote the manuscript. C.D. and Q.D. conducted experiments and analyzed data. A.C. contributed to the experimental design, supervised the experiments, and edited and wrote parts of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Vij et al.
PY - 2020/3/1
Y1 - 2020/3/1
N2 - Cryptococcus neoformans and Cryptococcus gattii are pathogenic fungi that cause significant morbidity and mortality. Cell surface hydrophobicity (CSH) is a biophysical parameter that influences the adhesion of fungal cells or spores to biotic and abiotic surfaces. C. neoformans is encased by polysaccharide capsule that is highly hydrophilic and is a critical determinant of virulence. In this study, we report large differences in the CSH of some C. neoformans and C. gattii strains. The capsular polysaccharides of C. neoformans strains differ in repeating motifs and therefore vary in the number of hydroxyl groups, which, along with higher-order structure of the capsule, may contribute to the variation in hydrophobicity that we observed. We found that cell wall composition, in the context of chitin-chitosan content, does not influence CSH. For C. neoformans, CSH correlated with phagocytosis by natural soil predator Acanthamoeba castellanii. Furthermore, capsular binding of the protective antibody (18B7), but not the nonprotective antibody (13F1), altered the CSH of C. neoformans strains. Variability in CSH could be an important characteristic in comparing the biological properties of cryptococcal strains. IMPORTANCE The interaction of a microbial cell with its environment is influenced by the biophysical properties of a cell. The affinity of the cell surface for water, defined by the cell surface hydrophobicity (CSH), is a biophysical parameter that varies among different strains of Cryptococcus neoformans. The CSH influences the phagocytosis of the yeast by its natural predator in the soil, the amoeba. Studying variation in biophysical properties like CSH gives us insight into the dynamic host-predator interaction and hostpathogen interaction in a damage-response framework.
AB - Cryptococcus neoformans and Cryptococcus gattii are pathogenic fungi that cause significant morbidity and mortality. Cell surface hydrophobicity (CSH) is a biophysical parameter that influences the adhesion of fungal cells or spores to biotic and abiotic surfaces. C. neoformans is encased by polysaccharide capsule that is highly hydrophilic and is a critical determinant of virulence. In this study, we report large differences in the CSH of some C. neoformans and C. gattii strains. The capsular polysaccharides of C. neoformans strains differ in repeating motifs and therefore vary in the number of hydroxyl groups, which, along with higher-order structure of the capsule, may contribute to the variation in hydrophobicity that we observed. We found that cell wall composition, in the context of chitin-chitosan content, does not influence CSH. For C. neoformans, CSH correlated with phagocytosis by natural soil predator Acanthamoeba castellanii. Furthermore, capsular binding of the protective antibody (18B7), but not the nonprotective antibody (13F1), altered the CSH of C. neoformans strains. Variability in CSH could be an important characteristic in comparing the biological properties of cryptococcal strains. IMPORTANCE The interaction of a microbial cell with its environment is influenced by the biophysical properties of a cell. The affinity of the cell surface for water, defined by the cell surface hydrophobicity (CSH), is a biophysical parameter that varies among different strains of Cryptococcus neoformans. The CSH influences the phagocytosis of the yeast by its natural predator in the soil, the amoeba. Studying variation in biophysical properties like CSH gives us insight into the dynamic host-predator interaction and hostpathogen interaction in a damage-response framework.
KW - Acanthamoeba castellanii
KW - Capsular antibody
KW - Cell surface hydrophobicity (CSH)
KW - Cryptococcus gattii
KW - Cryptococcus neoformans
KW - Polysaccharide capsule
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U2 - 10.1128/MSPHERE.00310-20
DO - 10.1128/MSPHERE.00310-20
M3 - Article
C2 - 32350094
AN - SCOPUS:85084170644
VL - 5
JO - mSphere
JF - mSphere
SN - 2379-5042
IS - 2
M1 - e00310-20
ER -