2100 Imagine identical twin sisters, one short, dark-haired, and zaftig; the other tall, blond, and willowy. You’re not likely to run across this pair, since identical twins possess matching genomes and thus, when raised under the same conditions, look alike. But some organisms, like the fungus Candida albicans, can assume dramatically different, heritable forms even though they share identical...

The opportunistic fungal pathogen Candida albicans can cause superficial as well as systemic infections. Successful adaptation to the different host niches encountered during infection requires coordinated expression of various virulence traits, including the switch between yeast and hyphal growth forms and secretion of aspartic proteinases. Using an in vivo expression technology that is based ...

A Candida albicans efg1 cph1 double mutant is nonfilamentous under standard laboratory conditions and avirulent in mice. However, this mutant produced filaments in the tongues of immunosuppressed gnotobiotic piglets and when embedded in agar, demonstrating that an Efg1p- and Cph1p-independent pathway for promotion of filamentous growth exists.

Defects in mitochondrial translation are associated with a remarkable, but unexplained diversity of clinical phenotypes. Here we have investigated the molecular basis for tissue specificity in patients with a fatal hepatopathy due to mutations in the mitochondrial translation elongation factor EFG1. Blue-native gel electrophoresis revealed unique, tissue-specific patterns in the nature and seve...

The human pathogen Candida albicans can assume either of two distinct cell types, designated "white" and "opaque." Each cell type is maintained for many generations; switching between them is rare and stochastic, and occurs without any known changes in the nucleotide sequence of the genome. The two cell types differ dramatically in cell shape, colony appearance, mating competence, and virulence...

The common fungal pathogen, Candida albicans, can grow either as single cells or as filaments (hyphae), depending on environmental conditions. Several transcriptional regulators have been identified as having key roles in controlling filamentous growth, including the products of the TUP1, CPH1, and EFG1 genes. We show, through a set of single, double, and triple mutants, that these genes act in...