[Regulations diversity of fungal copper homeostasis--a review]

Copper is an essential trace element in all organisms and serves as a catalytic cofactor for many biological processes in cells. Yet excess cuprous and cupric forms can be high toxic to the cells. Thus cells must have developed diverse mechanisms to control the uptake and distribution of copper. Much are known about the copper metabolism in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and a few other fungi. In this review, we focus on the recent research in copper uptake, transport and distribution in model organism baker's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, as well as the new frontier in other fungi, e.g., the novel roles of copper in the pathogenesis of the fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans.