Fungwall partner 8

The fungal cell wall as a target for antifungal therapies

Partner 8

Departamento de Microbiología II. Facultad de Farmacia
Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain)

Other scientists
Dr C. Gil, Dr J. Pla, Dr J. Arroyo

Departamento de Microbiología II. Facultad de Farmacia
Plaza de Ramón y Cajal s/n, 28040 Madrid Espana
+34-91-3941743 - 2 +34-91-3941746
Fax +34-91-3941745

Experience of the participating organisation and scientists

Participating organisation

The proposal will be carried out by within the Yeast Cell Wall and Signal Transduction Groups working on Candida albicans (Dr Gil and Dr Pla) and Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Dr Arroyo and Dr Molina) of the Department of Microbiology at the UCM and with the help of the Genomics and Proteomics Service of the UCM directed by Dr Arroyo and Dr Gil. These central services accommodate all the equipment necessary for sequencing, real-time PCR, manufacturing and bioinformatic analysis of DNA arrays, proteomics (DIGE, Biacore) and mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF, Q-TOF). These groups have been focused for many years on the study of the yeast cell wall and the regulatory signalling networks controlling stress responses and morphogenesis in the model yeast S. cerevisae as well as in the pathogen C. albicans under the supervision of Professor César Nombela. They have a broad expertise in a variety of molecular microbiology methodologies, including genetic, biochemical and cellular biology techniques, pathogenicity and immunological studies, and genomic and proteomic analyses. They have participated in several Genomic International Projects (S. cerevisiae sequencing and EUROFAN projects; EUROCELLWALL and Aspergillus sequencing project) as well as in a Spanish Project within a Special Action for Genomics and Proteomics. They have also had a large number of cooperative projects with different Pharmaceutical Companies, namely Lilly, Glaxo SmithKline, Pfizer and Janssen Cilag.

Participating scientists

Prof. Arroyo has been the Principal Scientist of the last European Project EUROCELLWALL granted by the Framework VI devoted to exploiting yeast cell wall for HTS of antimicrobial agents. He has broad expertise in the field of S. cerevisiae cell wall, in particular in the study of remodelling enzymes and the transcriptomic analysis of the cell wall compensatory mechanism. Dr Molina has been involved for many years in the study of signal transduction pathways that control cell wall dynamics and morphogenesis in S. cerevisiae. Her group has the biochemical skills to analyse signalling and protein phosphorylation. Dr Gil´s group is pioneering in the development of Proteomics in Spain. She is interested in the definition of the C. albicans and S. cerevisiae cell wall subproteome as well as in the identification of the C. albicans immunome for developing new diagnostic methods. The major research topic of Dr Pla is the study of signal transduction pathways in C. albicans. His group has developed many tools for the molecular manipulation of this pathogen.

Relevant publications

Martín, H., Rodríguez -Pachón, J.M., Ruiz, C., Nombela, C., & Molina, M. (2000) Regulatory mechanisms for modulation of signaling through the cell integrity Slt2-mediated pathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. J. Biol. Chem. 275:1511-1519.

Rodríguez-Peña, J.M., Cid, V.J., Arroyo, J., & Nombela, C. (2000) A novel family of cell wall-related proteins regulated differently during the yeast life cycle. Mol. Cell Biol. 20:3245-55.

Rodriguez-Pena, J.M., Rodriguez, C., Alvarez, A., Nombela, C., & Arroyo, J. (2002) Mechanisms for targeting of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae GPI-anchored cell wall protein Crh2p to polarised growth sites. J. Cell Sci. 115:2549-58.

Pitarch A., Sánchez M., Nombela C., & Gil C. (2002) Sequential Fractionation and Two-dimensional Gel Analysis Unravels the Complexity of the Dimorphic Fungus Candida albicans Cell Wall Proteome. Mol. Cell Proteomics, 1:967-982.

Alonso-Monge, R., Navarro-Garcia, F., Roman, E., Negredo, A.I., Eisman, B., Nombela, C., Pla, J. (2003) The Hog1 Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase Is Essential in the Oxidative Stress Response and Chlamydospore Formation in Candida albicans. Eukaryot. Cell 2:351-361.

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