Oligopeptide transport and regulation of extracellular proteolysis are required for growth of Aspergillus fumigatus on complex substrates but not for virulence.

Moulds are characterized by their saprophytic lifestyle that is based on osmotrophy. Among them, Aspergillus fumigatus has emerged as the leading cause of fungal infections in the presence of an underlying immunodeficiency. To assess the role of its nutritional versatility for virulence, transcriptional profiling studies in the presence of varying sources of nitrogen were carried out and revealed an extensive reprogramming of the fungal transcriptome when shifting to a proteinaceous growth substrate. Transcripts encoding metabolic activities were predominantly upregulated, as were proteinases and transport activities. To probe whether fundamental aspects of its osmotrophic lifestyle, that is, extracellular proteolysis and uptake of oligopeptides, are required for A. fumigatus pathogenicity, serial gene replacements were carried out, which eventually yielded an octuple deletion mutant ablated for the opt gene family. This strain displayed no growth defect on various substrates, but supplementary reduction of extracellular proteolytic activity by additional deletion of the prtT gene revealed a synthetic phenotype on porcine lung tissue agar. Virulence studies in a murine model of pulmonary aspergillosis did not disclose any attenuation in virulence of these deletants. Our data emphasize a high degree of redundancy encoded by the A. fumigatus genome that secures nutrient supply for growth and, therefore, virulence.