Lineage-specific selection and the evolution of virulence in the Candida clade.

ABSTRACT: Candida albicans is the most common cause of systemic fungal infections in humans and is considerably more virulent than its closest known relative, Candida dubliniensis. To investigate this difference, we constructed interspecies hybrids and quantified mRNA levels produced from each genome in the hybrid. This approach systematically identified expression differences in orthologous genes arising from cis-regulatory sequence changes that accumulated since the two species last shared a common ancestor, some 10 million y ago. We documented many orthologous gene-expression differences between the two species, and we pursued one striking observation: All 15 genes coding for the enzymes of glycolysis showed higher expression from the C. albicans genome than the C.

SUBMITTER: Singh-Babak SD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8000421 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature