| Title: | A Set of Diverse Genes Influence the Frequency of White-Opaque Switching in Candida albicans |
| Author(s): | Brenes LR; Lohse MB; Hartooni N; Johnson AD; |
| Address: | "Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and. Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and ajohnson@cgl.ucsf.edu. Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94158" |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 2160-1836 (Electronic) 2160-1836 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "The fungal species Candida albicans is both a member of the human microbiome and a fungal pathogen. C. albicans undergoes several different morphological transitions, including one called white-opaque switching. Here, cells reversibly switch between two states, 'white' and 'opaque,' and each state is heritable through many cell generations. Each cell type has a distinct cellular and colony morphology and they differ in many other properties including mating, nutritional specialization, and interactions with the innate immune system. Previous genetic screens to gain insight into white-opaque switching have focused on certain classes of genes (for example transcriptional regulators or chromatin modifying enzymes). In this paper, we examined 172 deletion mutants covering a broad range of cell functions. We identified 28 deletion mutants with at least a fivefold effect on switching frequencies; these cover a wide variety of functions ranging from membrane sensors to kinases to proteins of unknown function. In agreement with previous reports, we found that components of the pheromone signaling cascade affect white-to-opaque switching; however, our results suggest that the major effect of Cek1 on white-opaque switching occurs through the cell wall damage response pathway. Most of the genes we identified have not been previously implicated in white-opaque switching and serve as entry points to understand new aspects of this morphological transition" |
| Keywords: | "*Candida albicans/genetics/metabolism Fungal Proteins/genetics/metabolism *Gene Expression Regulation, Fungal Genes, Mating Type, Fungal Humans Phenotype Pheromones Signal Transduction Candida albicans white-opaque switching genetic screen non-transcripti;" |
| Notes: | "MedlineBrenes, Lucas R Lohse, Matthew B Hartooni, Nairi Johnson, Alexander D eng R01 AI049187/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/ Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural England 2020/06/04 G3 (Bethesda). 2020 Aug 5; 10(8):2593-2600. doi: 10.1534/g3.120.401249" |
