Yeast complementation and resazurin cell viability assays for analyzing ceramide synthase functionality and inhibition, respectively. (A) The conditionally lethal strain S. cerevisiae Δlac1/TET::LAG1 was complemented with yeast (green), F. verticillioides (blue) and human (violet) ceramide synthase homologs. Complementation of the null mutant was evaluated in the absence of inducer (0 μg/ml doxycycline) after 2 days on SD–Ura (n = 2). (B) Plasmid Ptef1::FvCER3 was introduced into S. cerevisiae WT, Δlac1, and Δlag1 backgrounds. (C to E) Resazurin assay with S. cerevisiae Δlac1/TET::LAG1 strains (500 μg/ml FB1) (C), S. cerevisiae WT strains (500 μg/ml FB1) (D), and F. verticillioides
FUM17/18 mutants (250 μg/ml FB1) (E). Growth curves used for the calculations are shown in Fig. S4. In each case, inhibition of the control strain was arbitrarily set to 100%. The data are means ± the standard deviations (n = 3). For statistical analysis, strains were compared as indicated or with the control using the Student t test (*, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.01; ***, P < 0.001).