Manganese homeostasis modulates glucan and chitin unmasking in the opportunistic yeast <i>Candida albicans</i>
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Candida albicans is a commensal fungus and also the most prevalent human fungal pathogen. The ability of this opportunistic yeast to acquire and maintain homeostatic levels of manganese (Mn), particularly in the metal-limited host environment, is an important determinant of its fitness. Recent studies have underscored the importance of Mn acquisition through members of Smf transporters, in C. albicans virulence and its ability to withstand various stresses. In the present study, we undertook transcriptional profiling in the mutant of the Mn transporter Smf12 under restricted Mn availability to identify processes that are directly impacted by impaired Mn uptake. Our analysis revealed that smf12 displayed a transcriptional pattern suggestive of a cell wall defect, with many transcripts associated with cell wall biogenesis being differentially regulated. smf12 together with smf11, a mutant of the closest homolog of Smf12, exhibited hypersensitivity to cell wall stressors and an altered cell wall ultrastructure. The smf mutants also exhibited unmasking of both β-glucan and chitin, which unexpectedly resulted in a decreased rate of phagocytosis by macrophages, suggesting impaired recognition or internalization. Furthermore, we showed that Mn-mediated unmasking of β-glucan required modulation of glucanase activity and was not mediated through the calcineurin pathway. This study uncovers a novel role for Mn in maintaining cell wall integrity and modulating the exposure of fungal antigenic determinants, further emphasizing the critical role of this metal in supporting the opportunistic nature of C. albicans.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".