Purification and characterization of an autoregulatory substance capable of regulating the morphological transition in Candida albicans
- 27 March 2001
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Vol. 98 (8) , 4664-4668
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.071404698
Abstract
The yeast Candida albicans has a distinguishing feature, dimorphism, which is the ability to switch between two morphological forms: a budding yeast form and a multicellular invasive filamentous form. This ability has been postulated to contribute to the virulence of this organism. Studies on the morphological transition from a filamentous to a budding yeast form in C. albicans have shown that this organism excretes an autoregulatory substance into the culture medium. This substance was extracted and purified by normal-phase and reversed-phase HPLC. The autoregulatory substance was structurally identified as 3,7,11-trimethyl-2,6,10-dodecatrienoate (farnesoic acid) by NMR and mass spectrometry. Growth experiments suggest that this substance does not inhibit yeast cell growth but inhibits filamentous growth. These findings have implications for developmental signaling by the fungus and might have medicinal value in the development of antifungal therapies.Keywords
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