Nuclear division in temperature-sensitive multicellular mutants of Wangiella dermatitidis

Importance of calcium to the regulation of polymorphism in Wangiella (Exophiala) dermatitidis

Critical steps implicated in the polymorphism of Wangiella dermatitidis were found to be sensitive to calcium ion availability. When grown in a defined, synthetic medium under various pH and temperature conditions, two thresholds of calcium ion concentrations were identified: a lower concentration favouring non-polarized growth leading to multicellular form development and a higher concentration promoting polarized growth characterized by yeast budding or pseudo/true hyphal growth. The phenotypic transition of yeasts to multicellular forms or to hyphae was induced at both 25 and 37 degrees C in the wild-type strain by the addition of calcium to the synthetic medium adjusted to pH 2.5, which was otherwise not conducive to the production of either growth form. However, the calcium additions did not allow maintenance of polarized growth of yeasts or hyphae in a temperature-sensitive, cell-division-cycle mutant (wdcdc2) derived from the same strain and grown at 37 degrees C in the same medium adjusted to either pH 2.5 or 6.5. Instead these conditions allowed only the nonpolarized, multicellular form development associated with this conditional mutant cultured in rich media at the 37 degree C restrictive temperature for yeast bud formation. Results from experiments using the calcium chelator EGTA added to the synthetic medium supported these conclusions at neutral pH with both the wild type and the wdcdc2 mutant cultured at 37 degrees C. The results suggested that during infection different concentrations of calcium may be encountered by W. dermatitidis in different tissues, which might directly regulate its growth and polymorphism and indirectly its virulence depending on host conditions.

Pleoanamorphic life cycle of Exophiala (Wangiella) dermatitidis

The anamorph life cycle of the black yeast Exophiala (Wangiella) dermatitidis is described. The fungus is dimorphic, yeast cells being the prevalent form of propagation. The fungus is strongly hydrophilic, probably completing its anamorph life cycle in submersion. Adaptation to dry conditions is slow. Types of conidiogenesis comprise annellidic, phialidic and sympodial reproduction, in addition to isotropic development. Phialoconidia fail to germinate under the conditions tested, and thus may have a function other than dispersal. Sterile, multicellular bodies resembling a Capronia teleomorph are described.

Evidence for two cell division cycle (CDC) genes that govern yeast bud emergence in the pathogenic fungus Wangiella dermatitidis

Strains Mc2 and Mc3 are morphological mutants of the melanized, pathogenic fungus Wangiella dermatitidis. These strains possess temperature-sensitive (ts) mutations designated mcm2 and mcm3, respectively. At the restrictive temperature (37 degrees C), uninucleate yeast cells of strains Mc2 and Mc3 cease budding and initiate an isotropic mode of cellular development, which is reflected in the formation of a multicellular and multinucleate morphology. Because W. dermatitidis either lacks or has an undiscovered sexual cycle, parasexual methods of analysis were used to confirm that mcm2 and mcm3 define separate bud emergence control genes in the wild-type strain. Spheroplasts of albino auxotrophs derived from strains Mc2 and Mc3 were fused and then regenerated on minimal medium. The resulting fusion products grew as darkly pigmented, prototrophic colonies. When incubated at 37 degrees C, all fusion products exhibited polarized growth predominantly as uninucleate, budding yeasts and less frequently as pseudohyphae and moniliform hyphae. Subsequent analysis of cultures derived from albino, ts segregants, which were induced from fusion products by using methyl benzimidazole-2-yl-carbamate, revealed three types of cell populations. Two resembled those expressed by strain Mc2 or Mc3. The third consisted of a cell population unlike the former, suggesting the presence of both ts mutations in all cells. These results imply that yeast development in the fusion products resulted from intergenic complementation of mcm2 and mcm3, i.e., they are nonallelic. Because mcm2 and mcm3 are equivalent to certain cdc lesions in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, we have renamed the analogous genes defined by the mutations in W. dermatitidis as CDC1 and CDC2. To our knowledge, these are the first CDC genes identified in a dematiaceous fungus.

Microtubule function and its relation to cellular development and the yeast cell cycle in Wangiella dermatitidis

The microtubule inhibitor nocodazole (methyl-5-[2-(thienylcarbonyl)-1H-benzimidazol-2-yl]-carbamate) prevented nuclear migration and nuclear division in yeasts and developing multicellular forms of the polymorphic fungus Wangiella dermatitidis. It did not prevent yeast bud formation during at least two or three budding cycles, and caused yeasts to accumulate as premitotic forms with one to three buds. The effects of the drug suggested that at least three control pathways were involved in the yeast cell cycle; that the nocodazole block point was separate from the execution points of two temperature-sensitive mutations which lead to multicellularity; and that microtubules were controlling neither the yeast budding process nor the development of multicellular forms.

Yeast-phase cell cycle of the polymorphic fungus Wangiella dermatitidis

The yeast-phase cell cycle of Wangiella dermatitidis was studied using flow microfluorimetry and the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) synthesis inhibitor hydroxyurea (HU). Exposure of exponential-phase yeastlike cells to 0.1 M HU for 3 to 6 h resulted in the arrest of the cells in DNA synthesis and produced a nearly homogeneous population of unbudded cells. Treatment of the yeast-phase cells with HU for 9 h or longer resulted in the accumulation of the cells predominantly as budded forms having either a single nucleus in the mother cell or a single nucleus arrested in the isthmus between the mother cell and the daughter bud. Exposure of unbudded stationary-phase cells to 0.1 M HU resulted in the accumulation of the cells in the same phenotypes. Analysis by flow microfluorimetry and cell counts of HU-inhibited mithramycin-stained cells indicated that the eventual progress of HU-inhibited cells from unbudded to the two budded forms was due to the limited continuation of the growth sequence of the cell cycle even in the absence of DNA synthesis, nuclear division, and in some cases nuclear migration. On the basis of these observations and the results of flow microfluorimetric analysis of exponential-phase cells, a map of the yeast-phase cell cycle was constructed. The cycle appears to consist of two independent sequences of events, a budding growth sequence and a DNA division sequence. The nuclear division cycle of yeast-phase cells growing exponentially with a 4.5-h generation time is composed of a G1 interval of 148 min, as S phase of 16 min, and a G2 plus M interval of 107 min.