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. 2016 Apr 12;11(4):e0153535.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0153535. eCollection 2016.

The Effects of Cutaneous Fatty Acids on the Growth of Pseudogymnoascus destructans, the Etiological Agent of White-Nose Syndrome (WNS)

Craig L Frank  1 , Melissa R Ingala  2 , Rebecca E Ravenelle  1 , Kelsey Dougherty-Howard  2 , Samuel O Wicks  2 , Carl Herzog  3 , Robert J Rudd  4
Affiliations

The Effects of Cutaneous Fatty Acids on the Growth of Pseudogymnoascus destructans, the Etiological Agent of White-Nose Syndrome (WNS)

Craig L Frank et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

White Nose Syndrome (WNS) greatly increases the over-winter mortality of little brown (Myotis lucifugus), Indiana (Myotis sodalis), northern (Myotis septentrionalis), and tricolored (Perimyotis subflavus) bats. It is caused by a cutaneous infection with the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd). Big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) are much more resistant to cutaneous infection with Pd, however. We thus conducted analyses of wing epidermis from hibernating E. fuscus and M. lucifugus to determine their fatty acid compositions, and laboratory Pd culture experiments at 4.0-13.4°C to determine the effects of these fatty acids on Pd growth. Our analyses revealed that the epidermis of both bat species contain the same 7 fatty acid types (14:0, 15:0, 16:0. 16:1, 18:0, 18:1, & 18:2), but the epidermis of M. lucifugus contains: a) more stearic (18:0) acid, b) less palmitoleic (16:1) acid, c) less myristic (14:0) acid, and, d) less oleic (18:1) acid than that of E. fuscus. The growth of Pd was inhibited by: a) myristic and stearic acids at 10.5-13.4°C, but not at 4.0-5.0°C, b) oleic acid at 5.0-10.6°C, c) palmitoleic acid, and, d) linoleic (18:2) acid at 5.0-10.6°C. One set of factors that enables E. fuscus to better resist cutaneous P. destructans infections (and thus WNS) therefore appears to be the relatively higher myristic, palmitoleic, and oleic acid contents of the epidermis.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Mean (± SE) surface areas of Pseudogymnoascus destructans colonies at various stages of growth on control (squares), 0.5% myristic (14:0) acid (circles), and 0.5% palmitic (16:0) acid (triangles) SDA media at Ta = 4 (blue symbols) and 13.4°C (red symbols).
Means within the same Ta treatment sharing a common lower-case letter are not significantly different at the p < 0.05 level.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Mean (± SE) surface areas of Pseudogymnoascus destructans colonies at various stages of growth on 0.5% stearic (18:0) acid (circles), 0.5% oleic (18:1) acid (triangles), and control (squares) SDA media at Ta = 5.0 (blue symbols) and 10.5°C (red symbols).
Means within the same Ta treatment sharing a common lower-case letter are not significantly different at the p < 0.05 level.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Mean (± SE) surface areas of Pseudogymnoascus destructans colonies at various stages of growth on 1% palmitoleic (16:1) acid (circles), 1% oleic (18:1) acid (triangles), and control (squares) SDA media at Ta = 10.5°C.
Means sharing a common lower-case letter are not significantly different at the p < 0.05 level.
Fig 4
Fig 4. Mean (± SE) surface areas of Pseudogymnoascus destructans colonies at various stages of growth on 1% oleic (18:1) acid (circles), 1% linoleic (18:2) acid (triangles), and 1% stearic (18:0) acid (squares) SDA media at Ta = 5.0 (blue symbols) and 10.6°C (red symbols).
Means within the same Ta treatment sharing a common lower-case letter are not significantly different at the p < 0.05 level.
Fig 5
Fig 5. Mean (± SE) surface areas of Pseudogymnoascus destructans colonies at various stages of growth on 1% myristic (14:0) acid (circles), 2% myristic acid (triangles), and 0.25% myristic acid (squares) SDA media at Ta = 5.0 (blue symbols) and 10.5°C (red symbols).
Means within the same Ta treatment sharing a common lower-case letter are not significantly different at the p < 0.05 level.
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