Current relevance of fungal and trypanosomatid glycolipids and sphingolipids: studies defining structures conspicuously absent in mammals

Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências

Helio K. Takahashi¹  Marcos S. Toledo¹  Erika Suzuki¹  Loriane Tagliari¹  Anita H. Straus¹ 

关键词: glycosphingolipids;    glycosylinositol phosphorylceramides;    inositol phosphorylceramide;    Leishmania;    membrane rafts;    pathogenic fungi;    glicoesfingolipídeos;    glicosilinositol-fosforilceramidas;    inositol fosforilceramidas;    Leishmania;    "membrane rafts";    fungos patogênicos;   

DOI  :  10.1590/S0001-37652009000300012

来源: SciELO

【 摘 要 】

Recently, glycosphingolipids have been attracting attention due to their role on biological systems as second messengers or modulators of signal transduction, affecting several events, which range from apoptosis to regulation of the cell cycle. In pathogenic fungi, glycolipids are expressed in two classes: neutral monohexosylceramides (glucosyl-or galactosylceramide) and acidic glycosylinositol phosphorylceramides (the latter class carries longer glycan chains). It is worth to mention that monohexosylceramides exhibit significant structural differences in their lipid moieties compared to their mammalian counterparts, whereas the glycosylinositol phosphorylceramides exhibit remarkable structural differences in their carbohydrate moieties in comparison to mammal glycosphingolipids counterpart. We observed that glycosylinositol phosphorylceramides are capable of promoting immune response in infected humans. In addition, inhibiting fungal glycosphingolipid biosynthetic pathways leads to an inhibition of colony formation, spore germination, cell cycle, dimorphism and hyphal growth. Other pathogens, such as trypanosomatids, also present unique glycolipids, which may have an important role for the parasite development and/or disease establishment. Regarding host-pathogen interaction, cell membrane rafts, which are enriched in sphingolipids and sterols, participate in parasite/fungal infection. In this review, it is discussed the different biological roles of (glyco) (sphingo)lipids of pathogenic/opportunistic fungi and trypanosomatids.

【 授权许可】

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