Cryptococcus neoformans is a pathogenic fungus which causes millions of deaths and infections, especially threatening immunocompromised individuals. During the development of new drugs, the ubiquitination has been found to play an important role in the regulation of the virulence and cell cycle of this fungus. Based on this mechanism, ubiquitination-related mutant strains exhibiting cell cycle arrest have been established for drug development for the fungus. However, flow cytometry detection of the cell cycle in fungi is generally difficult because the thick cell wall and capsule of fungi generally contribute to a nonspecific signal of cytometry. In this study, an improved method, derived from Saccharomyces cerevisiae assays, is developed to specifically stain C. neoformans, in whose cell cycle the G1 and G2 peaks are separated enough to be allowed for cell cycle analysis. As a result, the improved method facilitates the detection of the alterations in the cell cycle of C. neoformans with a mutation that results in cell cycle arrest, which distinctly delays the cell division of C. neoformans. Thus, the improved method reported here provides detailed technical information regarding assays on C. neoformans and, more importantly, offers a solution for assessing the cell cycle in other fungi in the future. Abbreviation: PI: propidium iodide.
Keywords: Cryptococcus neoformans; Saccharomyces cerevisiae; Cytometry; PI; Sybr Green; cell cycle; staining; yeast.