CSA6

According to a recent study, researchers have identified gene called CSA6 which could hold the key to prevent fungal infection Candidiasis that often affects intensive-care unit (ICU) patients, cancer patients and patients receiving immunosuppressive therapy.
Candida Albicans is a fungal species infamous for causing high rates of morbidity and mortality under certain immuno-compromised conditions such as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) or during cancer treatment.
It resides in the mucosal linings of the gastrointestinal and urogenital tract of healthy individuals.
Further, it turns into a pathogen under immuno-compromised conditions breaching the host defense causing superficial as well as life-threatening systemic infection.
It’s a collaborative study between Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bangalore, India and Institut Pasteur, Paris, France.
They carried out a large-scale screen to identify regulators of chromosome stability in Candida albicans, a clinically relevant fungal model system.

Findings:

Researchers screened the effect of overexpression of more than a thousand genes of C. albicans on genome stability.
They were successful in identifying a set of six chromosome stability (CSA) genes that are important for maintaining genome integrity.
While five of the CSA genes identified in the study are known to be important for cell division in other species, the sixth CSA gene, named CSA6 encoded for a protein that is essential for viability in C. albicans.
They found that Csa6 was a critical regulator of cell cycle progression wherein both overexpression and deletion of CSA6 lead to reduced growth of C. albicans cells.

Outcomes:

It identifies and elucidates the functions of a novel regulator of chromosome stability that is exclusively present in a group of medically relevant human fungal pathogens.
Besides, it also provides a systematic scheme for identifying genes whose products may serve as potential therapeutic interventions for fungal infections by posing lesser adverse effects on humans.
Hence, small molecule modulators that alter expression levels of the gene called CSA6 offer potential avenues for treatment with no side effects in humans.

SOURCE: THE HINDU,THE ECONOMIC TIMES,MINT

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