Fig. 3

Fungal spores adhere to damaged epithelia and initiate hyphal growth (A and B) Maximum intensity projections of confocal images of R. arrhizus-GFP spores adhered to areas of damaged epithelial tissue with exposed laminin compared with homeostatic epithelium. Scale bar, 20 μm. (C) Quantification of spore adherence to wells coated with increasing concentrations of laminin. (D and E) Time-lapse imaging of R. arrhizus-GFP spores adhered at sites of epithelial damage undergoing germination. Arrowheads denote germlings/early hyphae. Asterisks denote epithelial cell extrusion. Scale bar, 20 μm. (F) Survival rates of larvae with induced cell loss infected with R. arrhizus 749 spores pre-coated or not with 0.2 or 2 μg/mL laminin. Aggregated survival rates based on 75 larvae per condition across five independent experiments, and SDs are plotted. (G) Survival rates of larvae with induced cell loss after addition of CotH-depleted R. arrhizus (CotHRNAi) and the corresponding wild-type control (control RNAi). (H) Survival rates of larvae with induced cell loss after addition efg1, cph1, or efg1/cph1 C. albicans mutants compared with an isogenic control (SC5314). Aggregated survival rates based on 44–45 larvae per condition across three independent experiments are plotted. Error bars represent SD. (I) Survival rates of larvae after induced cell loss after R. arrhizus infection and treatment with voriconazole (VRC), amphotericin B (AMB), and posaconazole (PCZ), normalized to the number of animals alive at the time of treatment (16 h post infection, n = 50–52 across five independent experiments). (F–I) Mantel-Cox log rank test.