The cell regulation mechanism of the sexual reproduction of cryptococcal bacteria is revealed.

Wang Linqi, National Key Laboratory of Mycology at the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, published the results of the study entitled Genetic basis for the coordination of the mes and the sexual lysation in Cryptocous neoneoformans in the international journal eLife.
study reported that the development of neo-cryptococcal bacteria (more than 200,000 deaths per year, with a fatality rate of 20%-70%) was highly associated in space-time with the differential process, which was a core fate-determining mechanism that stimulated the production of infected spores.
this is the group's second discovery of the cellular regulation mechanism of cryptococcal sexual reproduction following the publication of Nature Microbiology (the June 2018 issue of Nature Microbiology title article).
spores as an resistant structure are widely involved in the infection of pathogenic microorganisms.
for pathogen bacteria, the formation of infected spores comes from asexual reproduction cycles.
because asexual reproduction does not effectively produce genetic recombination, resulting in less genetic diversity among infected spores.
unlike bacteria, eukaryotic pathogens (e.g. fungi) are able to produce spores (sex spores) from sexual reproduction.
in the sexual reproduction process, subtracted division and recombination can greatly promote the diversity of the spore genome, leading to the production of highly pathogenic and drug-resistant spores, providing a lineage advantage.
so spores can contribute to the infection of eukaryotic bacteria through physical resistance advantages and species advantages.
neo-crecoccal bacteria is a good material for the study of eyrescoccal sexual reproduction, and its sexual reproduction products have spores as key infectious reproductions to participate in early host lung implantation.
given its importance, numerous studies have aimed at uncovering new genes in the formation of spores.
however, the fate of the process has not been reported.
there are two parallel events before the formation of cryptic spores: the maturation and subtraction of the sexual structure (also known as basidium): the marker cell structure of the fungus fungus.
Wang Linqi's team developed a novel quantitative phenotype evaluation strategy (the analysis of the maturity index of the burden) and identified a sexual structure-specific indicator molecule Fad1 to accurately evaluate the different stages of development in the maturation of the cryptococcal structure.
use this strategy to realize the visualization of the sexual structure maturity and subtracted split process, thus directly confirming the space-time coupling of the two events.
then identified the key regulatory loop of decisive structural maturation and reduced-number split conjugate by detecting genome-wide gene-induced characteristics at multiple points in the process of cryptococcal sexual reproduction.
the absence of the loop's key gene can lift the coupling, and importantly, the dissolution of the coupling ultimately completely blocks the production of infected spores.
in the process of fungal sexual reproduction, sexual structure differentiation needs to be coordinated with the process of reduction and division, so as to ensure the formation of children.
although the hypothesis has been presented for a long time, the molecular and cellular mechanisms are not clear.
the study confirms the formation of phase-time couples of sexual structural differentiation and subtraction division processes as a key cell fate-determining mechanism for the formation of spores.
, the regulatory loop responsible for coupling is very conservative in fungi, suggesting that the loop-controlled coupling may be broadly responsible for the production of fungal spores.
Wang Linqi's research has been supported by major national science and technology projects (special infectious diseases), the Chinese Academy of Sciences' cutting-edge science key research projects, the National Natural Science Foundation of China "excellent youth science fund", the project on the face, etc. Liu Linxia, a doctoral student at the
Institute of Microbiology, He Guangjun, an assistant researcher, and Chen Lei, a ph.D. student, are co-first authors.
Professor Liao Guojian of Southwest University, Yang Enze, a researcher at Peking University's Medical Department, and Li Yiwei, an associate researcher at the Institute of Microbiology, contributed to the study.
Source: Institute of Microbiology.