Denture stomatitis (DS) is characterized by inflammation of the oral mucosa in direct contact with dentures and affects a significant number of otherwise healthy denture wearers. The disease is caused by Candida albicans, which readily colonizes and form biofilms on denture materials. While evidence for biofilms on abiotic and biotic surfaces initiating Candida infections is accumulating, a rol...

Cell chain formation is a characteristic of filamentous growth in fungi. How it is regulated developmentally in multimorphic fungi is not known. In Candida albicans, degradation of septa during yeast growth is accomplished by enzymes encoded by Ace2 activated genes expressed in G(1). We found that phosphorylation of a conserved developmental regulator, Efg1, by the cyclin-dependent kinase Cdc28...

Non-genetic phenotypic variations play a critical role in the adaption to environmental changes in microbial organisms. Candida albicans, a major human fungal pathogen, can switch between several morphological phenotypes. This ability is critical for its commensal lifestyle and for its ability to cause infections. Here, we report the discovery of a novel morphological form in C. albicans, refer...

Candida albicans is a polymorphic fungus that is capable of causing the life-threatening disease Candidiasis once it reaches the bloodstream of a susceptible host. One of the major virulence factors is its ability to switch from yeast to hyphal or pseudohyphal morphology. Yeast to hyphal transition is well studied and many environmental signals such as high temperature, alkaline pH, and presenc...

Background: Infections caused by Candida spp. have been associated with formation of a biofilm, i.e. a complex microstructure of cells adhering to a surface and embedded within an extracellular matrix (ECM). Methods: The ECMs of a wild-type (WT, SN425) and two Candida albicans mutant strains, Δ/Δ tec1 (CJN2330) and Δ/Δ efg1 (CJN2302), were evaluated. Colony-forming units (cfu), total biomass (m...

Filamentous growth is an important virulence trait of the human pathogenic fungi within the genus Candida, and the greater propensity of C. albicans to form hyphae has been proposed to account for the greater virulence of this species relative to the less pathogenic species C. dubliniensis. In this meta-analysis, we compare the transcriptional response of C. dubliniensis and C. albicans to the ...

Both mitogen-activated protein kinases and cyclin-dependent kinases play a role in hyphal development in Candida albicans. Using an oligonucleotide probe-based screen, we have isolated a new member of the Cdc2 kinase subfamily, designated Crk1 (Cdc2-related kinase). The protein sequence of Crk1 is most similar to those of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Sgv1 and human Pkl1/Cdk9. In S. cerevisiae, CRK1...

Streptococcus agalactiae and Candida albicans often co-colonize the female genital tract, and under certain conditions induce mucosal inflammation. The role of the interaction between the two organisms in candidal vaginitis is not known. In this study, we found that co-infection with S. agalactiae significantly attenuated the hyphal development of C. albicans, and that EFG1-Hwp1 signal pathway ...

Heritable epigenetic changes underlie the ability of cells to differentiate into distinct cell types. Here, we demonstrate that the fungal pathogen Candida tropicalis exhibits multipotency, undergoing stochastic and reversible switching between three cellular states. The three cell states exhibit unique cellular morphologies, growth rates, and global gene expression profiles. Genetic analysis i...