ABSTRACTIn yeast cells such as those ofSaccharomyces cerevisiae, expression of ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter proteins has been found to be increased and correlates with a concomitant elevation in azole drug resistance. In this study, we investigated the roles of twoAspergillus fumigatusproteins that share high sequence similarity withS. cerevisiaePdr5, an ABC transporter protein that is commonly overproduced in azole-resistant isolates in this yeast. The twoA. fumigatusgenes encoding the ABC transporters sharing the highest sequence similarity toS. cerevisiaePdr5 are calledabcAandabcBhere. We constructed deletion alleles of these two different ABC transporter-encoding genes in three different strains ofA. fumigatus. Loss ofabcBinvariably elicited increased azole susceptibility, whileabcAdisruption alleles had variable phenotypes. Specific antibodies were raised to both AbcA and AbcB proteins. These antisera allowed detection of AbcB in wild-type cells, while AbcA could be visualized only when overproduced from thehspApromoter inA. fumigatus. Overproduction of AbcA also yielded increased azole resistance. Green fluorescent protein fusions were used to provide evidence that both AbcA and AbcB are localized to the plasma membrane inA. fumigatus. Promoter fusions to firefly luciferase suggested that expression of both ABC transporter-encoding genes is inducible by azole challenge. Virulence assays implicated AbcB as a possible factor required for normal pathogenesis. This work provides important new insights into the physiological roles of ABC transporters in this major fungal pathogen.
The ABC transporter proteins Pat1 and Pat2 are required for import of long-chain fatty acids into peroxisomes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
