Hsp90 co-chaperones and their role in fungal virulence
Yeast Hsp90 acts in concert with up to 13 co-chaperones that modulate client specificity and ATPase activity. These co-chaperones are much less conserved than Hsp90 and their role in virulence remains largely enigmatic. Here we ask, if these co-chaperones regulate Candida virulence and if targeting them, rather than Hsp90, would be a viable alternative to block Candida virulence.
Our Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action funded research project investigated the role of Hsp90 co-chaperones in Candida virulence and genome integrity. As part of this project, we:
- demonstrated that non-essential co-chaperones regulate different facets of Candida virulence, including biofilm formation and virulence in an invertebrate model of fungal virulence (Lyons et al., manuscript in preparation),
- developed a new invertebrate model to study fungal disease (Lyons et al., 2020. Virulence), and
- showed that Hsp90 is essential for genome diversification in this obligate diploid yeast (Dong et al., manuscript in preparation).
Thank you!