The Global Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. Laure's work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
About Laure
2023 - ongoing - Lecturer in Medical Microbiology 2020-2023 Postdoctoral Research Fellow – MRC Centre for Medical Mycology, University of Exeter, UK.I studied the antagonistic interaction between the opportunistic fungal pathogen Candida albicans and the gram-negative bacterium Serratia marcescens. S. marcescenswas shown to kill C. albicansvia the type 6 secretion system (T6SS), which is a needle like structure that injects effectors into the fungal cell, ultimately killing it. The main research question of this project was how the T6SS can pierce through the fungal cell wall, which presents a formidable and thick barrier to T6SS incursion. I am currently finalising this project.
2017-2020 FAPESP (Sao Paulo Research Foundation) Young Investigator Fellow – Faculty of Medicine, University of Sao Paulo.
2016-2017 CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development) Postdoctoral Fellow – Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Sao Paulo
From 2016-2021, I was involved in either the supervision or as the primary investigator of several research projects, including the one associated to my fellowship. My research during these years mainly focused on investigating metabolic processes in Aspergillus fumigatusand how they influence pathogenicity. I have briefly listed the most relevant ones hereafter.
I studied the role of the physiologically relevant carbon source acetate for virulence traits of A. fumigatus. Acetate is present in human body fluids and peripheral tissues, and a carbon source for A. fumigatusduring infection. We showed that acetate is metabolized via different pathways in A. fumigatus, a process that is controlled by the previously uncharacterised transcription factor FacB. Furthermore, acetate utilisation significantly affected A. fumigatusvirulence traits such as secondary metabolite secretion and cell wall composition, resulting in altered resistance to oxidative stress, antifungal drugs, and human neutrophil-mediated killing. Indeed, deletion of facBsignificantly impaired the in vivovirulence of A. fumigatusin both insect and mammalian models of invasive aspergillosis (Ries et al., 2021, mBio, doi:10.1128/mBio.01682-21).
I identified a previously uncharacterised transcription factor (termed RglT) as the missing major regulator of gliotoxin (GT) biosynthesis in A. fumigatus. GT is a fungal toxin, which is secreted during the stages of early infection and plays a role in zinc chelation, thus interfering with the normal function of immune cells. In this work, I showed that RglT is important for oxidative stress resistance, GT biosynthesis and self-protection. RglT was shown to be important for virulence in a chemotherapeutic murine model of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA). Furthermore, I showed that RglT is present in other eurotiomycete and sordariomycete fungi, including the non-GT-producing fungus A. nidulans, where a conservation of function was described (Ries et al., 2020, PLoS Pathog, doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1008645).
I supervised a postdoctoral project that aimed at characterising the virulence of Aspergillus nidulans clinical isolates in CGD (chronic granulomatous disease) murine and zebrafish models. This work showed that substantial differences exist between these isolates in terms of genome sequence and structure as well as susceptibility to antifungal drugs and conserved protein kinase signalling pathways (Bastos et al., 2020, mSphere doi: 10.1128/mSphere.00153-20). In addition, I participated in the phenotypic characterisation (antifungal drug susceptibility, growth phenotype, stress resistance, conidia size) of 6 clinical isolates of filamentous fungi from patients with aspergillosis. These isolates turned out to be allodiploid hybrids of two Aspergillusspecies. This was the first time that hybridisation events for human pathogenic fungi were described (Steenwyk et al., 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.04.071).
2013-2016 FAPESP Postdoctoral Fellow – Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Sao Paulo
I investigated the role of different protein domains of the carbon catabolite repressor CreA in Aspergillus nidulansin order to further characterise the secretion of industrially important enzymes. In addition, I studied the regulation of the two transcription factors ClrA and ClrB, important for enzyme secretion in A. nidulans (Ries et al., 2016, doi: 10.1534/genetics.116.187872).
Supervised Research Degrees
Ailton Pereira da Costa Filho – Master of Science (MSc) student, Department of Biochemistry and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sao Paulo
Teaching
Module lead for BHCS001 and BHCS002. I also teach on BHCS1006, BHCS2001, BHCS2006, BHCS3003, BHCS5008. I primarily teach microbiology with a focus on Mycology and interkingdom interactions. Mycology. Superficial and invasive fungal infections including dermatophytes, commensal and environmental fungiInterkingdom interactions. Antagonistic or synergistic fungal-bacterial interactions and their impact on human health in a niche-dependent manner.
Contact Laure
+44 1752 585642
laure.ries@plymouth.ac.uk
