Author:
DA Stevens1,2*, I Kotta-Loizou3, M Martinez1, RHA Coutts4, G Sass1
Author address:
1Infectious Disease Research Laboratory, California Institute for Medical Research, San Jose, CA, USA
2Div. of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
3Dept. of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, London, UK
4Dept. of Clinical, Pharmaceutical and Biological Science, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK
Full conference title:
10th Advances Against Aspergillosis and Mucormycosis
Date: 2 February 2022
Abstract:
Purpose:
There is little data on the effects of viral infections on the fungal host physiology. Most studies have failed to demonstrate any effects, a few have shown effects on virulence. In previous studies we showed Aspergillus fumigatus polymycovirus-1(AfuPmV-1)impairs A. fumigatus (Af) in intermicrobial competition (largely in competition for iron), but also in effects of bacterial volatile organic molecules. The former defect was related to temporal production of siderophores. We now studied the effect of viral infection on another stress, hypertonic salt.
Methods:
Reference Af strain Af293 is infected with AfuPmV-1, and was cured of infection with cycloheximide, generating isogenic virus-infected (VI) and virus-free (VF) strains. Growth (area) of both isogenic lines on RPMI1640 agar in presence and absence (control) of 0.8M NaCl was compared in 5 experiments (4 technical replicates/experiment), over 48-144 hrs.
Results:
Salt stress impairs growth of VI and VF (p <0.0001, at all times sampled). VF control growth always exceeded VI (p 0.002- <0.0001), and VF growth in salt always exceeded VI (p up to <0.0001). Since VF growth exceeds VI in presence and absence of salt, we also examined growth in salt as a percent of control growth. Initially, as a percent of control, VI exceeded VF, but at 120 hrs VF began to exceed VI consistently (p up to 0.0004), even by this measure, and persisted; thus at that time growth of VF in salt surges in relation to control growth, or, alternatively, its growth in salt persists compared to relative inhibition of VI.
Conclusion:
VF growth in several control media exceeded VI, as described here and in other media studied, although our prior studies indicated no differences in oxidative metabolism assays (XTT). VF growth in the presence of high salt was always superior to VI. Virus infection impairs response of Af to several different stresses. We report elsewhere VF-VI differences in production of siderophores and recently, gliotoxins. Temporal assays to document differences have been required, and will be, in future studies of mechanisms.
Abstract Number: 39
Conference Year: 2022
Link to conference website: https://aaam2022.org/
URL Conference abstract: