Many antifungal drugs including the highly successful azoles target the fungal-specific sterol, ergosterol, yet the molecular identity of cellular pathways mediating antifungal activity remained obscure. A recent study on the requirement of ergosterol in vacuolar H+-ATPase (V-ATPase) function uncovered a critical role for ion homeostasis downstream of azole inhibition of ergosterol biosynthesis...

The role of ergosterol in yeast stress tolerance, together with heat shock proteins (hsps) and trehalose, was examined in a sterol auxotrophic mutant of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Ergosterol levels paralleled viability data, with cells containing higher levels of the sterol exhibiting greater tolerances to heat and ethanol. Although the mutant synthesised hsps and accumulated trehalose upon heat...

Ergosterol, the major sterol of fungal membranes, is essential for developmental growth and the main target of antifungals that are currently used to treat fatal fungal infections. Emergence of resistance to existing antifungals is a current problem and several secondary resistance mechanisms have been described in Aspergillus fumigatus clinical isolates. A full understanding of ergosterol bios...

The rate-limiting enzyme in the mevalonic acid (MVA) pathway which can lead to triterpenoid saponin glycyrrhizic acid (GA) is 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA reductase (HMGR). In order to reveal the effect of copy number variation in the HMGR gene on the MVA pathway, the HMGR gene from Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch. (GuHMGR) was cloned and over-expressed in Pichia pastoris GS115. Six recombinant P...

GOTTLIEB, D., R. J. KNAUS, and S. G. WOOD. 1978. Differences in the Sterol synthesizing pathways of sterol-producing and non-sterol-producing fungi. Phytopathology 68: I 168-1169. The mycelia of several sterol-producing and non-sterolsqualene was detected in the non-sterol-producing fungi. The producing fungi were analyzed for the presence of squalene, block in the synthesis of ergosterol by th...

The sterol fraction of Acanthamoeba (Neff) contains 60% 7-dehydrostigmasterol and 40% ergosterol. The sterols were characterized by infrared and ultraviolet spectroscopy, gas chromatography, specific reactions, and mass spectral analysis. Sterols constitute 5% of the lipids and 15% of the neutral lipids in this species.

A water-soluble complex containing ergosterol together with a component of yeast has been isolated. The complex can be isolated from commercial yeast extract to which ergosterol has been added or directly from whole yeast cells. The complexing component has the properties of a large polysaccharide and the binding between the sterol and the polysaccharide appears to be noncovalent. The complex i...

Clotrimazole and triadimefon are known as potent inhibitors of ergosterol synthesis in pathogenic yeast and fungi, respectively. As their mode of action generally the inhibition of sterol desmethylation reactions is accepted. We report about a second effect, a "feed-back" inhibition of 3-hydroxy-3-methyl-glutaryl (HMG)-CoA-reductase by accumulation of ergosterol precursors. Addition of lanoster...

Xylaria, belonging to the Ascomycotina, is known to produce diverse classes of bioactive substances. In an effort to identify the chemical constituents of the fruiting bodies of Xylaria polymorpha, linoleic acid (1), linoleic acid methyl ester (2), ergosterol (3), 4-acetyl-3,4-dihydro-6,8-dihydroxy-3-methoxy-5-methyl-1H-2-benzopyran-1-one (4), and 4-hydroxyscytalone (5) were isolated from its m...