Effect of the major repeat sequence on mitotic recombination in Candida albicans.

Effect of the Major Repeat Sequence (MRS) on mitotic recombination in Candida albicans

Models for the Evolution of GC Content in Asexual Fungi Candida albicans and C. dubliniensis

Although guanine-cytosine (GC)-biased gene conversion (gBGC) following meiotic recombination seems the most probable mechanism accounting for large-scale variations in GC content for many eukaryotes, it cannot explain such variations for organisms belonging to ancient asexual lineages, such as the pathogenic fungi Candida albicans and C. dubliniensis. Analysis of the substitution patterns for t...

Tca1, the retrotransposon-like element of Candida albicans, is a degenerate and inactive element.

Candida albicans is an asexual fungus and as such must rely on mechanisms other than sexual recombination to generate genetic diversity. Retrotransposons are ubiquitous genetic elements known to generate multiple types of genomic alterations. We have further investigated the nature of the retrotransposon-like element Tca1 in C. albicans. Tca1 is present at two loci in strain SC5314. Both loci h...

Molecular epidemiology, phylogeny and evolution of Candida albicans.

A small number of Candida species form part of the normal microbial flora of mucosal surfaces in humans and may give rise to opportunistic infections when host defences are impaired. Candida albicans is by far the most prevalent commensal and pathogenic Candida species. Several different molecular typing approaches including multilocus sequence typing, multilocus microsatellite typing and DNA f...

Chromosome loss followed by duplication is the major mechanism of spontaneous mating-type locus homozygosis in Candida albicans.

Candida albicans, which is diploid, possesses a single mating-type (MTL) locus on chromosome 5, which is normally heterozygous (a/alpha). To mate, C. albicans must undergo MTL homozygosis to a/a or alpha/alpha. Three possible mechanisms may be used in this process, mitotic recombination, gene conversion, or loss of one chromosome 5 homolog, followed by duplication of the retained homolog. To di...