Homothallic and heterothallic mating in the opportunistic pathogen Candida albicans

Kevin Alby, Dana Schaefer and Richard J. Bennett ()
Additional contact information
Kevin Alby: Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912, USA
Dana Schaefer: Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912, USA
Richard J. Bennett: Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912, USA

Nature, 2009, vol. 460, issue 7257, 890-893

Abstract: Same-sex mating in Candida albicans The yeast Candida albicans, which causes mucosal infections such as thrush as well as systemic infections, was once thought strictly asexual, but it is now known that a cryptic mating cycle exists in this organism. Mating normally involves fusion of a and α cell types, a system similar to that in the related yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Now an additional and novel mode of sexual reproduction has been discovered in C. albicans. Under specific conditions — in the absence of the bar1 gene that encodes a secreted protease — efficient same-sex mating can take place between a-type cells. Similarities between same-sex mating in C. albicans and that in the unrelated fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans raise the possibility that 'homothallism' of this type promotes the survival of these species in the mammalian host.

Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08252 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:460:y:2009:i:7257:d:10.1038_nature08252

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature08252

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().