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The research group of Genomics and Molecular Biotechnology of Mushrooms of the University of Murcia (UMU) creates a genomic platform, using as a model the fungus Mucor circinelloides, which allows to identify which genes are essential to produce the infection known as mucormycosis
This technique, published in PLoS Pathogens, opens new avenues for the development of drugs and treatments against a disease for which there are no treatments and that presents a mortality of approximately 90%.
The designed platform, which is based on interfering RNA technology (deserving of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2006), allows to determine the function of all the genes involved in the infection process.
An advance that according to Francisco Esteban Nicolás Molina, director of the work, is important because currently the genomic technologies allow to easily obtain the sequence of the genome of any organism, but not to ascertain the function of the genes that constitute it.
"It is the first time that a technique of this type is developed for fungi," explains Nicolás.
UMU scientists have found two genes that have a lot to do with the virulence of the fungus and could be key to designing drugs that act on the genes involved in fungal (fungal) infection.
The increase in cases diagnosed in the last years of mucormycosis has raised the alarm among the scientific community, which has classified it as an emerging disease that must be studied quickly in order to identify possible targets (genes).
It is also noteworthy that recently the UMU research group published in the journal Nature an article, which had great impact, in which they described the mechanism that used the fungus Mucor circinelloides to change so fast and adapt to the new conditions.
Source: Universidad de Murcia
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