Genome-wide profiling identifies Saccharomyces cerevisiae response in PKC-SLT2 signaling and glycogen metabolic pathways to antifungal compound calcofluor white

Fungal infection remains a major problem worldwide, yet treatment options are limited owing to the lack of effective drugs, the significant toxicity of available compounds, and the emergence of drug resistance. The low toxicity of calcofluor white (CFW) is an attractive antifungal compound for its known inhibitive effects on trichophyton rubrum and candida albicans growth. However, the efficacy of CFW is limited in most cases. In order to search for effective means to improve its efficacy, using saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model, we have used microarrays to examine the cell’s response when treated with CFW on the genome scale. We found that both the PKC-SLT2 (i.e, protein kinase C-mitogen activated protein kinase) and the glycogen metabolic pathways are activated upon CFW treatment. These results suggest that the key components in these pathways could be targeted by other drugs to counter the cell’s compensative response, thus to further substantiate the inhibitive effect of CFW on fungal growth, which may lead to treatment regimens with improved efficacy of this compound in clinical applications.