Abstract
Candida auris is an invasive fungal pathogen of high concern due to acquired drug tolerance against antifungals used in clinics. The prolonged persistence on biotic and abiotic surfaces can result in onset of hospital outbreaks causing serious health threat. An in depth understanding of pathology of C. auris is highly desirable for development of efficient therapeutics. Non-coding RNAs play crucial role in fungal pathology. However, the information about ncRNAs is scanty to be utilized. Herein our aim is to identify long noncoding RNAs with potent role in pathobiology of C. auris. Thereby, we analyzed the transcriptomics data of C. auris infection in blood for identification of potential lncRNAs with regulatory role in determining invasion, survival or drug tolerance under infection conditions. Interestingly, we found 275 lncRNAs, out of which 253 matched with lncRNAs reported in Candidamine, corroborating for our accurate data analysis pipeline. Nevertheless, we obtained 23 novel lncRNAs not reported earlier. Three lncRNAs were found to be under expressed throughout the course of infection, in the transcriptomics data. 16 of potent lncRNAs were found to be coexpressed with coding genes, emphasizing for their functional role. Noteworthy, these ncRNAs are expressed from intergenic regions of the genes associated with transporters, metabolism, cell wall biogenesis. This study recommends for possible association between lncRNA expression and C. auris pathogenesis.
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Acknowledgement
RP thanks Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) DST for project funding (CRG/2021/003585). RP thanks to ICMR for grant no IIRP23/4057. BS thanks INSPIRE (DST) for PhD fellowship.
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This study was funded by CRG/2021/003585 (Science and Engineering Research Board, DST) and IIRP23/4057 from Indian Council of Medical Research to RP.
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Conceived by V.N. and R.P. KM, VN, RP and BS wrote the main manuscript. Data analysis by K.M., V.N., and B.S. All authors reviewed the manuscript.
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Mathur, K., Singh, B., Puria, R. et al. In silico genome wide identification of long non-coding RNAs differentially expressed during Candida auris host pathogenesis. Arch Microbiol 206, 253 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-024-03969-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-024-03969-7