This book provides an in-depth overview on the manifold functions of fungal extracellular vesicles (EV) which span from cell-to-cell communication, pathogenicity and stimulation of hosts immunity to export of hundreds of biomolecules. The book summarizes the present knowledge on the impact of extracellular vesicles on fungal biology. Extracellular vesicles participate in fundamental biological processes in all living cells but only during the last 15 years the production and functions of EVs were identified and studied in fungal species too. Up to date more than 50 independent studies have shown that extracellular vesicles are produced by at least 20 fungal species.
The book addresses researchers and advanced students in Microbiology, Mycology and Biotechnology.
Preface.- Foreword.
Chapter 1. Biogenesis of Fungal Extracellular
Vesicle: what do we know?.
Chapter
2. Lessons learned from studying
Histoplasma capsulatum extracellular vesicles .
Chapter
3. Current Status on
Extracellular Vesicles from the Dimorphic Pathogenic Species of
Paracoccidioide.
Chapter
4. Extracellular vesicles from Sporothrix yeast
cells.
Chapter
5. Filamentous Fungi Extracellular Vesicles .
Chapter
6.Extracellular vesicles and the propagation of yeast prions .
Chapter
7.
Contributions of Extracellular Vesicles to Fungal Biofilm Pathogenesis .-
Chapter 8.Fungal extracellular vesicles in interkingdom communication .-
Chapter
9. Interactions of extracellular vesicles from pathogenic fungi with
innate leukocytes .
Chapter
10. Fungal extracellular vesicles as a potential
strategy for vaccine development .
Chapter
11. Current microscopy strategies
to image fungal vesicles: from the intracellular trafficking and secretion to
the inner structure of isolated vesicles .
Chapter
12. Proteomic
characterization of EVs in non-pathogenic yeast cells.
Marcio Rodrigues is a senior investigator at the Carlos Chagas Institute (Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Fiocruz; Brazil). His laboratory is mainly interested in the mechanisms by which fungal cells export biologically active molecules to the extracellular space. In collaboration with Drs. Arturo Casadevall, Leonardo Nimrichter and Kildare Miranda, all authors in this volume, Marcio Rodrigues led the discovery of fungal extracellular vesicles in 2007. His laboratory has been investigating the role of extracellular vesicles in fungal physiology and pathogenesis for the last decade, mainly using the Cryptococcus model of secretion. The group is especially interested in how lipids and glycans participate in secretory processes that are essential for fungi, aiming to connect basic cell biology mechanisms with the identification of cellular pathways that could be targeted by novel antifungal agents.
Guilhem Janbon is the head of the Unit RNA Biology in Fungal Pathogens and the director of the Department of Mycology of the Institute Pasteur in Paris (France). He has very long experience working and publishing papers dealing with different aspects of pathogenic or non-pathogenic fungi. His laboratory study different aspect of the RNA biology of some pathogenic fungi. His group is also interested in the analysis of the structure and genetics of fungal EVs. Since recently, in collaboration with Drs. Marcio Rodrigues and R May, his laboratory has been using the most updated technologies to revisit fungal EV structure and to study their diversity of shape, size and structure.
