17th JPIAMR transnational call for research projects - AMR Interventions 2024 (IMPACT)

General Information

• Project title: Understanding how host defense effectors protect against fungal secreted mycotoxins
• Type: Project looking for partner
• Organisation: CNRS
• Country: France (FR)
• Career stage: Other.

Research area

• Scientific area(s) of the call:
  1. Topic 1: Design novel or improved interventions to prevent, mitigate and /or treat fungal infections, which are resistant to treatments and/or are at risk of developing resistance
• Subtopics:

• One Health Setting:

  Human Health

  Animal Health (incl. wildlife, livestock, acquatic organisms, and companion animals)

• Keywords:

  mycotoxins; host defense; Drosophila melanogaster; Aspergillus fumigatus; Candida glabrata

• Brief description of your expertise / expertise you are looking for:

  We are two partners from Strasbourg: one is a specialist of the study of host-pathogen interactions using the Drosophila melanogaster model, with an expertise on fungal infection models; the other; Dr. Burkhard Bechinger, is a physical chemist who is an expert on the biophysics of peptides associated to membranes. We are looking for partners interested in identifiying and understanding the mechanism of action of fungal virulence factors.

• Brief description of your project / the project you would like to join:

  We have recently discovered that the Drosophila Toll pathway mediates protection against A. fumigatus secreted virulence factors through secreted peptides of the Bomanin family characterized by the conserved 16-17aa Bomanin domain. We have also shown that overexpression of BomS6 is sufficient to rescue the sensitivity of flies deleted for a locus encoding 10 Bomanins to the ribotoxin Restrictocin and to the secondary metabolite verruculogen (Xu et al., EMBO Reports, 2023). Also, short Bomanins are thought to act on Candida glabrata as potential AMPs, the quantity of Bomanins being more important than their nature (e.g., BomS3 vs. BomS1) (Lindsay et al. Journal of Innate Immunity, 2018) . One of the key questions we are currently asking is how do Bomanin protect against the action of biochemically-diverse virulence factors and also how can they function as AMPs.

Dominique Ferrandon

• Organisation: CNRS
• Position: PI
• E-mail: D.Ferrandon@unistra.fr
• Phone: (33)388417017