Calcium-Mediated Induction of Paradoxical Growth Following Caspofungin Treatment is Associated with Calcineurin Activation and Phosphorylation in Aspergillus fumigatus.

Calcium-Mediated Induction of Paradoxical Growth Following Caspofungin Treatment is Associated with Calcineurin Activation and Phosphorylation in Aspergillus fumigatus. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2015 Jun 8; Authors: Juvvadi PR, Muñoz A, Lamoth F, Soderblom EJ, Moseley MA, Read ND, Steinbach WJ Abstract The echinocandin antifungal drug caspofungin at high concentrations reverses the growth inhibition of Aspergillus fumigatus, a phenomenon known as the "paradoxical effect", which is not consistently observed with other echinocandins (micafungin and anidulafungin). Previous studies on A. fumigatus revealed the loss of the paradoxical effect following pharmacological or genetic inhibition of calcineurin, yet the underlying mechanism is poorly understood. Here we utilized a codon-optimized bioluminescent Ca(2+)-reporter aequorin expression system in A. fumigatus and show that caspofungin elicits a transient increase in [Ca(2+)]c (cytosolic free Ca(2+)) in the fungus that acts as the initial trigger of the paradoxical effect by activating calmodulin-calcineurin signaling. While the increase in [Ca(2+)]c was also observed upon treatment with micafungin, another echinocandin without the paradoxical effect, a higher [Ca(2+)]c increase was noted with the paradoxical growth concentration of caspofungin. Treatments with a Ca(2+)-selective chelator, BAPTA, or the L-type Ca(2+)-channel blocker, verapamil, abolished caspofungin-mediated paradox...
Source: Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy - Category: Microbiology Authors: Tags: Antimicrob Agents Chemother Source Type: research