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Updated: Mar 15, 2026
07:32
Biolistic Transformation of a Fluorescent Tagged Gene into the Opportunistic Fungal Pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans
Published on: March 19, 2015
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Intron retention-dependent gene regulation in Cryptococcus neoformans.
Sara Gonzalez-Hilarion1, Damien Paulet2, Kyung-Tae Lee3
1Institut Pasteur, Unité Biologie des ARN des Pathogènes Fongiques, Département de Mycologie, F-75015, Paris, France.
Scientific Reports
|September 1, 2016
Summary
Alternative splicing is common in fungi but doesn't diversify proteins. Instead, intron retention regulates gene expression in Cryptococcus neoformans, offering a new fungal gene regulation mechanism.
Area of Science:
- Mycology
- Molecular Biology
- Genomics
Background:
- Alternative splicing's role in fungi is understudied, despite fungi being intron-rich.
- Cryptococcus neoformans is an important fungal pathogen with a complex genome.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact and mechanisms of alternative splicing in Cryptococcus neoformans.
- To explore the evolutionary conservation of introns between C. neoformans varieties.
- To identify novel gene expression regulatory mechanisms in fungi.
Main Methods:
- Genome re-annotation of C. neoformans var. neoformans using RNA-Seq data.
- Comparative analysis of intron positions between C. neoformans varieties.
- Analysis of alternative splicing patterns and their regulation by environmental cues.
Main Results:
- Over 99% of ORF-introns are conserved between C. neoformans varieties; UTR-introns are less conserved.
- Alternative splicing affects nearly all expressed genes in C. neoformans.
- A novel intron retention-dependent gene expression regulation mechanism, independent of NMD, was identified.
Conclusions:
- Alternative splicing is prevalent but not a major driver of proteome diversity in C. neoformans.
- Intron retention serves as a key regulatory mechanism for gene expression tuning in response to environmental changes.
- This finding reveals an additional layer of gene regulation in fungi.
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