Keller Lab

A network-based model of Aspergillus fumigatus elucidates regulators of development and defensive natural products of an opportunistic pathogen Abstract. Aspergillus fumigatus is a notorious pathogenic fungus responsible for various harmful, sometimes lethal, diseases known as aspergilloses. Unders

Very happy to see this published: doi.org/10.1093/nar/...: a GRN-based approach to predict regulatory subnetworks for developmental and pathogenic processes in Aspergillus fumigatus and GRAsp: a network viz tool: grasp.wid.wisc.edu with @jeanmichelane.bsky.social and Nancy Keller labs!

Notably, we have successfully used this tool to identify a previously unknown transcription factor for negative regulation of gliotoxin and found the bZIP protein AtfA as required for fungal responses to lipo-chitooligosaccharides (LCOs) microbial signals.

A network-based model of Aspergillus fumigatus elucidates regulators of development and defensive natural products of an opportunistic pathogen Abstract. Aspergillus fumigatus is a notorious pathogenic fungus responsible for various harmful, sometimes lethal, diseases known as aspergilloses. Unders

We are excited to announce the publication of GRAsp, a gene regulatory network prediction tool for A. fumigatus in collaboration with @sroyyors.bsky.social and @jeanmichelane.bsky.social in Nucleic Acid Reports!

This tool can be found on our lab website or at grasp.wid.wisc.edu.

network-based model of Aspergillus fumigatus elucidates regulators of development and defensive natural products of an opportunistic pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus is a notorious pathogenic fungus responsible for various harmful, sometimes lethal, diseases known as aspergilloses. Understanding the gene regulatory networks that specify the expression programs underlying this fungus’ diverse phenotypes can shed mechanistic insight into its growth, development, and determinants of pathogenicity. We used eighteen publicly available RNA-seq datasets of Aspergillus fumigatus to construct a comprehensive gene regulatory network resource. Our resource, named GRAsp (Gene Regulation of Aspergillus fumigatus), was able to recapitulate known regulatory pathways such as response to hypoxia, iron and zinc homeostasis, and secondary metabolite synthesis. Further, GRAsp was experimentally validated in two cases: one in which GRAsp accurately identified an uncharacterized transcription factor negatively regulating the production of the virulence factor gliotoxin and another where GRAsp revealed the bZip protein, AtfA, as required for fungal responses to microbial signals known as lipo-chitooligosaccharides. Our work showcases the strength of using network-based approaches to generate new hypotheses about regulatory relationships in Aspergillus fumigatus. We also unveil an online, user-friendly version of GRAsp available to the Aspergillus research community.

Latest paper from our lab in collaboration with @sroyyors.bsky.social and Nancy Keller.

Most notably for me, we describe here the first fungal gene required for responses to LCOs (Nod factors) in the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus. More to come on this topic later!

Whole-chromosome duplications drive antimicrobial resistance in Aspergillus fumigatus Aneuploidy causes genome plasticity and enables adaptive responses that confer drug resistance in eukaryotes ranging from fungal pathogens to human cancer cells. Aspergillus fumigatus is a soil-reside...

Excited to share our new preprint in collaboration with @kellerlab.bsky.social! We identified unstable aneuploidy in Aspergillus fumigatus and explore how aneuploidy-mediated transcriptional and metabolic changes influence antifungal resistance.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Long-term monitoring of a North American cheese cave reveals mechanisms and consequences of fungal adaptation Using a unique longitudinal sampling approach, Louw et al. demonstrate how a cheese-associated Penicillium population has adapted in an artisan cheese production facility in Vermont, USA. Adaptation i...

Long-term monitoring of a North American cheese cave reveals mechanisms and consequences of fungal adaptation

Penicillium solitum over 8 years in a cheese cave => green-to-white shift

@currentbiology.bsky.social from @benwolfe.bsky.social with @kellerlab.bsky.social

www.cell.com/current-biol...

Importantly, we also show the strength of the zebrafish larval model to study virulence factors across fungal species.

Larval zebrafish burn wound infection model reveals conserved innate immune responses against diverse pathogenic fungi | mBio Secondary fungal infections within burn wound injuries are a significant problem that delays wound healing and increases the risk of patient mortality. Currently, little is known about how fungi colon...

New publication with the Huttenlocher Lab! Led by PhD candidate Nayanna Mercado Soto, we used zebrafish to study burn wound infections with Candida albicans & Aspergillus fumigatus, showing the innate immune response is highly conserved across fungal species. #fungi journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...