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Stress adaptation

Lookup NU author(s): Professor Janet Quinn

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).

Abstract

© 2017 American Society for Microbiology. Fungal species display an extraordinarily diverse range of lifestyles. Nevertheless, the survival of each species depends on its ability to sense and respond to changes in its natural environment. Environmental changes such as fluctuations in temperature, water balance or pH, or exposure to chemical insults such as reactive oxygen and nitrogen species exert stresses that perturb cellular homeostasis and cause molecular damage to the fungal cell. Consequently, fungi have evolved mechanisms to repair this damage, detoxify chemical insults, and restore cellular homeostasis. Most stresses are fundamental in nature, and consequently, there has been significant evolutionary conservation in the nature of the resultant responses across the fungal kingdom and beyond. For example, heat shock generally induces the synthesis of chaperones that promote protein refolding, antioxidants are generally synthesized in response to an oxidative stress, and osmolyte levels are generally increased following a hyperosmotic shock. In this article we summarize the current understanding of these and other stress responses as well as the signaling pathways that regulate them in the fungi. Model yeasts such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae are compared with filamentous fungi, as well as with pathogens of plants and humans. We also discuss current challenges associated with defining the dynamics of stress responses and with the elaboration of fungal stress adaptation under conditions that reflect natural environments in which fungal cells may be exposed to different types of stresses, either sequentially or simultaneously.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Brown AJP, Cowen LE, Di Pietro A, Quinn J

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Microbiology Spectrum

Year: 2017

Volume: 5

Issue: 4

Online publication date: 14/07/2017

Acceptance date: 11/05/2017

Date deposited: 05/09/2017

ISSN (electronic): 2165-0497

Publisher: American Society for Microbiology

URL: https://doi.org/10.1128/microbiolspec.FUNK-0048-2016

DOI: 10.1128/microbiolspec.FUNK-0048-2016

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