Analysis of gene expression changes in Trichophyton rubrum after skin interaction

Trichophyton rubrum, an anthropophilic and cosmopolitan fungus, is the most common agent of superficial mycoses. In this study, T. rubrum infection was modelled by adding human skin sections to a limited medium containing glucose and cDNA microarrays were used to monitor T. rubrum gene expression patterns on a global level. We observed that exposure to human skin resulted in upregulation of the expression levels of T. rubrum genes related to many cellular and biological processes, including transcription and translation, metabolism and secondary transport, the stress response, and signalling pathways. These results provide a reference set of T. rubrum genes whose expression patterns change upon infection and reveal previously unknown genes that most likely correspond to proteins that should be considered as virulence factor candidates and potential new drug targets for T. rubrum infection.