Parasexual Ploidy Reduction Drives Population Heterogeneity Through Random and Transient Aneuploidy in Candida albicans.

ABSTRACT: The opportunistic pathogen Candida albicans has a large repertoire of mechanisms to generate genetic and phenotypic diversity despite the lack of meiosis in its life cycle. Its parasexual cycle enables shifts in ploidy, which in turn facilitate recombination, aneuploidy, and homozygosis of whole chromosomes to fuel rapid adaptation. Here we show that the tetraploid state potentiates ploidy variation and drives population heterogeneity. In tetraploids, the rate of losing a single heterozygous marker [loss of heterozygosity (LOH)] is elevated ∼30-fold higher than the rate in diploid cells. Furthermore, isolates recovered after selection for LOH of one, two, or three markers were highly aneuploid, with a broad range of karyotypes including strains with a combination of di-, tri-, and tetrasom

SUBMITTER: Hickman MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4512543 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature