Bhussry Seminar Series: “White Nose Syndrome: A Fungal Wildlife Disease of Bats”

Presentation: “White Nose Syndrome: A Fungal Wildlife Disease of Bats”

Speaker:
Evan Pannkuk, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Oncology
Secondary appointment, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular & Cellular Biology
Georgetown University Medical Center

Presented in-person in Basic Science Building 341 and via Zoom.

About This Seminar:
Fungal diseases in wildlife populations have caused massive declines, to the point of regional extinctions, and have become increasingly prolific due to globalization and climate change. White nose syndrome (WNS) is one such disease caused by a psychrophilic fungus, Pseudogymnoascus destructans (or Pd for short), that has devastated North American bat communities for over a decade. Pd causes visible lesions on bat wings, and at more severe stages of disease causes death through starvation and dehydration. At a cutaneous level, secreted fungal enzymes are considered virulence factors that cause wing necrosis during infection. We purified the first extracellular Pd protease, serine protease (PdSP1), which was used as an early Pd antigen for WNS vaccine development. In addition, the host integumentary lipidome is composed of both sebaceous lipids that confer a protective effect from microbial infections while epidermal lipids aid in water retention during winter hibernation. While the sebaceous chemical composition is similar between several bat species, epidermal structural lipids are lost during Pd induced wing damage. Structural recovery and physiological function may return within 30 days for disease survivors during spring emergence; however, energetic imbalances during the healing process are unknown. Our current work has been more at the systemic level and has utilized lipidomics with high resolution mass spectrometry to map changes to lipid metabolism in bats during increased arousals from torpor due to Pd infection.

This seminar will highlight these previous studies, our current work at the systemic level of WNS, and the utility of metabolomic studies in identifying unknown metabolites in vertebrate systems.

Sponsored by the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular & Cellular Biology