Vesicular transport across the fungal cell wall

Arturo Casadevall, Joshua D. Nosanchuk, Peter Williamson, Marcio L. Rodrigues

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

119 Scopus citations

Abstract

Recent findings indicate that fungi use vesicular transport to deliver substances across their cell walls. Fungal vesicles are similar to mammalian exosomes and could originate from cytoplasmic multivesicular bodies. Vesicular transport enables the export of large molecules across the cell wall, and vesicles contain lipids, proteins and polysaccharides, many of which are associated with virulence. Concentration of fungal products in vesicles could increase their efficiency in food acquisition and/or delivering potentially noxious substances to other cells, such as amoebae or phagocytes. The discovery of vesicular transport in fungi opens many new avenues for investigation in basic cell biology and pathogenesis.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)158-162
Number of pages5
JournalTrends in Microbiology
Volume17
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2009

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Microbiology
  • Microbiology (medical)
  • Infectious Diseases
  • Virology

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