1887

Abstract

Dermatophytes and other filamentous fungi excrete sulphite as a reducing agent during keratin degradation. In the presence of sulphite, cystine in keratin is directly cleaved to cysteine and -sulphocysteine, and thereby, reduced proteins become accessible to hydrolysis by a variety of secreted endo- and exoproteases. A gene encoding a sulphite transporter in (), and orthologues in the dermatophytes and ( and , respectively), were identified by functional expression in . Like the sulphite efflux pump Ssu1p, AfuSsu1p, TruSsu1p and AbeSsu1p belong to the tellurite-resistance/dicarboxylate transporter (TDT) family which includes the tellurite transporter TehAp and the malate transporter Mae1p. Seven genes in the genome encode transporters of the TDT family. However, gene disruption of and of the two more closely related paralogues revealed that only encodes a sulphite efflux pump. TruSsulp and AbeSsulp are believed to be the first members of the TDT family identified in dermatophytes. The relatively high expression of and in dermatophytes compared to that of in likely reflects a property of dermatophytes which renders these fungi pathogenic. Sulphite transporters could be a new target for antifungal drugs in dermatology, since proteolytic digestion of hard keratin would not be possible without prior reduction of disulphide bridges.

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2007-03-01
2024-12-05
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