The Genome of the Human Pathogen Candida albicans Is Shaped by Mutation and Cryptic Sexual Recombination.

ABSTRACT: The opportunistic fungal pathogen Candida albicans lacks a conventional sexual program and is thought to evolve, at least primarily, through the clonal acquisition of genetic changes. Here, we performed an analysis of heterozygous diploid genomes from 21 clinical isolates to determine the natural evolutionary processes acting on the C. albicans genome. Mutation and recombination shaped the genomic landscape among the C. albicans isolates. Strain-specific single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and insertions/deletions (indels) clustered across the genome. Additionally, loss-of-heterozygosity (LOH) events contributed substantially to genotypic variation, with most long-tract LOH events extending to the ends of the chromosomes suggestive of repair via break-induced replic

SUBMITTER: Wang JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6143739 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature