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- Title
White-Opaque Switching in Natural MTLa/a Isolates of Candida albicans: Evolutionary Implications for Roles in Host Adaptation, Pathogenesis, and Sex.
- Authors
Jing Xie; Li Tao; Nobile, Clarissa J.; Yaojun Tong; Guobo Guan; Yuan Sun; Chengjun Cao; Hernday, Aaron D.; Johnson, Alexander D.; Lixin Zhang; Feng-Yan Bai; Guanghua Huang
- Abstract
Phenotypic transitions play critical roles in host adaptation, virulence, and sexual reproduction in pathogenic fungi. A minority of natural isolates of Candida albicans, which are homozygous at the mating type locus (MTL, a/a or a/a), are known to be able to switch between two distinct cell types: white and opaque. It is puzzling that white-opaque switching has never been observed in the majority of natural C. albicans strains that have heterozygous MTL genotypes (a/a), given that they contain all of the opaque-specific genes essential for switching. Here we report the discovery of white-opaque switching in a number of natural a/a strains of C. albicans under a condition mimicking aspects of the host environment. The optimal condition for white-to-opaque switching in a/a strains of C. albicans is to use N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) as the sole carbon source and to incubate the cells in 5% CO2. Although the induction of white-to-opaque switching in a/a strains of C. albicans is not as robust as in MTL homozygotes in response to GlcNAc and CO2, opaque cells of a/a strains exhibit similar features of cellular and colony morphology to their MTL homozygous counterparts. Like MTL homozygotes, white and opaque cells of a/a strains differ in their behavior in different mouse infection models. We have further demonstrated that the transcriptional regulators Rfg1, Brg1, and Efg1 are involved in the regulation of white-to-opaque switching in a/a strains. We propose that the integration of multiple environmental cues and the activation and inactivation of a set of transcriptional regulators controls the expression of the master switching regulator WOR1, which determines the final fate of the cell type in C. albicans. Our discovery of white-opaque switching in the majority of natural a/a strains of C. albicans emphasizes its widespread nature and importance in host adaptation, pathogenesis, and parasexual reproduction.
- Publication
PLoS Biology, 2013, Vol 11, Issue 3, p1
- ISSN
1544-9173
- Publication type
Academic Journal
- DOI
10.1371/journal.pbio.1001525