Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:3.4.24.3 (collagenase)
 18,340 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

It was demonstrated recently that three histidine kinases genes in Candida albicans contributed to virulence, indicating the importance of signaling pathways regulated by histidine kinases. In the present study, using a set of degenerate primers, RT-PCR was performed with cDNA of A. fumigatus as a template. PCR products were cloned and sequenced. After Blast analysis, it was found that one fragment (named as AFHK1), 305 bp, was highly homologous to the two-component histidine kinase tesA gene of Aspergillus nidulans. But AFHKI was not completely identical to the FOS-1 gene of A. fumigatus. The same A. fumigatus strain was used to inoculate the mice for a murine model of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA). After 5-days post-inoculation, the lungs of infected animals were removed and incubated for 2 h at 37 degrees C in digestion buffer containing collagenase and trypsin. The pulmonary cells were removed by passing the suspension through a sieve. The non-filterable hyphae were treated with deoxygenated sodium cholate. Total RNA of A. fumigatus isolated from the infected tissues or cultured in vitro was extracted. With AFHKI as a probe. a Northern blot was performed. A 3.0 kb (approximate) transcript of mRNA was detected corresponding to the putative histidine kinase gene. It was demonstrated that that gene was expressed at markedly higher levels in vivo than in vitro. The results suggest that this gene may contribute to the survival and virulence of A. fumigatus.
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PMID:Cloning of Aspergillus fumigatus histidine kinase gene fragment and its expression during invasive infection. 1191 67

Invasive aspergillosis increases in chronic immunosuppressive diseases such as cancer. There is little information about the mechanisms by which Aspergillus infection affects the immune regulation and microenvironment of cancer cells. Hence, this study was aimed at investigating the effect of invasive aspergillosis on immunosurveillance, metastasis, and prognosis of cancer in tumor-bearing mice. After implantation of mouse mammary tumor in BALB/c mice, they were infected with Aspergillus conidia intravenously. For comparison, groups of mice were experimentally infected with Aspergillus conidia or implanted with tumor cells separately. Seven days after Aspergillus infection, the serum levels of tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1) were measured by ELISA, and subsequently regulatory T lymphocytes were analyzed by flow cytometry. The survival of animals and mean tumor size were then determined. Our results indicated that tumor sizes in mice increased significantly after infection with Aspergillus conidia. Moreover, invasive aspergillosis enhanced the population of regulatory lymphocytes and level of TIMP-1. This study supports the idea that massive Aspergillus infection could stimulate tumor growth and increases the possibility of a bad prognosis. As a result, treatment of Aspergillus infection could be considered an important issue for efficient cancer therapy.
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PMID:Invasive aspergillosis promotes tumor growth and severity in a tumor-bearing mouse model. 2092 87