# Equipment supplement for grant R01 GM072540  Assembly and Function of the Yeast Spore Wall.

> **NIH NIH R01** · STATE UNIVERSITY NEW YORK STONY BROOK · 2024 · $99,821

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT (taken from the parent grant)
 Fungal infections are a significant public health problem because they can be
lethal in immunocompromised individuals. A major difficulty in treating these infections is
the small number of effective antifungal drugs. Existing treatments cause significant side
effects and frequently result in the appearance of resistant strains. The cell wall is an
essential organelle of a fungal cell and contains many fungal-specific components that
are potential targets for anti-fungal drugs. For example, one major class of antifungal
drugs targets a key enzyme in cell wall assembly. Therefore, understanding how the cell
wall is constructed is essential for identifying new targets for antifungal drugs. In the
budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the haploid genomes produced by meiosis
are encapsulated by a multi-layered spore wall, which allows spores to resist a variety of
environmental stresses. The inner layers of the spore wall are composed of mannan and
β-glucan, similar to the vegetative cell wall. The outer layers of the spore wall are
comprised of the polysaccharide chitosan, the polyphenol dityrosine and triglycerides.
These outer spore wall components are absent from vegetative cell walls and are
primarily responsible for the stress resistance of spores. The combination of (1)
chitosan, (2) a polyphenol, and (3) neutral lipids is a conserved structural module in
fungal cell walls, including those of pathogenic fungi. The budding yeast spore wall
therefore provides an excellent model system to study the construction and regulation of
this structural module. This grant is focused on how a conserved set of lipid-droplet
localized proteins regulates the assembly of this fungal cell wall structural module both in
S. cerevisiae and the pathogen Candida dubliniensis.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 11097570
- **Project number:** 3R01GM072540-19S1
- **Recipient organization:** STATE UNIVERSITY NEW YORK STONY BROOK
- **Principal Investigator:** Aaron M Neiman
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $99,821
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2005-09-12 → 2026-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11097570

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 11097570, Equipment supplement for grant R01 GM072540  Assembly and Function of the Yeast Spore Wall. (3R01GM072540-19S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/11097570. Licensed CC0.

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