Pleiotropic roles of LAMMER kinase, Lkh1 in stress responses and virulence of.

Abstract

Dual-specificity LAMMER kinases are highly evolutionarily conserved in eukaryotes and play pivotal roles in diverse physiological processes, such as growth, differentiation, and stress responses. Although the functions of LAMMER kinase in fungal pathogens in pathogenicity and stress responses have been characterized, its role in, a human fungal pathogen and a model yeast of basidiomycetes, remains elusive. In this study, we identified ahomologous gene and constructed a strain with a deletedand a complemented strain. Similar to other fungi, theΔ mutant showed intrinsic growth defects. We observed thatLkh1 was involved in diverse stress responses, including oxidative stress and cell wall stress. Particularly, Lkh1 regulates DNA damage responses in Rad53-dependent and -independent manners. Furthermore, the absence ofreduced basidiospore formation. Our observations indicate that Lkh1 becomes hyperphosphorylated upon treatment with rapamycin, a TOR protein inhibitor. Notably,deletion led to defects in melanin synthesis and capsule formation. Furthermore, we found that the deletion ofled to the avirulence ofin a systemic cryptococcosis murine model. Taken together, Lkh1 is required for the stress response, sexual differentiation, and virulence of.