Patricia Peterson, 2025 MGM Distinguished Fellows Travel Award Recipient

Patricia Peterson
Heitman Lab
Keystone Symposia on Fungal Pathogens: Emerging threats and Future Challenges, Breckenridge, CO.   
January 12-15, 2026
 

Abstract

The striatin-interacting phosphatase and kinase (STRIPAK) complex is a highly conserved signaling hub across eukaryotes. It incorporates the scaffold and catalytic subunits of protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) together with a striatin family regulatory subunit to coordinate key biological processes. Although STRIPAK has been extensively characterized in pathogenic and non-pathogenic ascomycetes, its role in basidiomycetes or human pathogens remain poorly understood. The basidiomycete yeast and opportunistic human fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans, a leading cause of fatal meningoencephalitis in immunocompromised individuals, must balance cell growth with adaptation to diverse host environments to establish infection. Given STRIPAK’s conserved roles in controlling a broad range of biological processes in other fungi, we hypothesized that this complex similarly regulates fundamental cellular programs in C. neoformans. We further predicted that disruption of individual subunits would rewire these programs in subunit-dependent ways, producing distinct consequences for virulence and host- pathogen interactions.