Fungal Extracellular Vesicles : Biological Roles

Marcio Rodrigues is a senior investigator at the Carlos Chagas Institute (Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Fiocruz; Brazil). His laboratory is mainly interested in the mechanisms by which fungal cells export biologically active molecules to the extracellular space. In collaboration with Drs. Arturo Casadevall, Leonardo Nimrichter and Kildare Miranda, all authors in this volume, Marcio Rodrigues led the discovery of fungal extracellular vesicles in 2007.  His laboratory has been investigating the role of extracellular vesicles in fungal physiology and pathogenesis for the last decade, mainly using the Cryptococcus model of secretion. The group is especially interested in how lipids and glycans participate in secretory processes that are essential for fungi, aiming to connect basic cell biology mechanisms with the identification of cellular pathways that could be targeted by novel antifungal agents.

Guilhem Janbon is the head of the Unit RNA Biology in Fungal Pathogens and the director of the Department of Mycology of the Institute Pasteur in Paris (France). He has very long experience working and publishing papers dealing with different aspects of pathogenic or non-pathogenic fungi. His laboratory study different aspect of the RNA biology of some pathogenic fungi. His group is also interested in the analysis of the structure and genetics of fungal EVs. Since recently, in collaboration with Drs. Marcio Rodrigues and R May, his laboratory has been using the most updated technologies to revisit fungal EV structure and to study their diversity of shape, size and structure.