AAC
Home Help [Feedback] [For Subscribers] [Archive] [Search] [Contents]
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Copyright Information
Right arrow Books from ASM Press
Right arrow MicrobeWorld
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Pujol, C.
Right arrow Articles by Soll, D. R.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Pujol, C.
Right arrow Articles by Soll, D. R.
Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, April 2003, p. 1207-1212, Vol. 47, No. 4
0066-4804/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/AAC.47.4.1207-1212.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Drug Resistance Is Not Directly Affected by Mating Type Locus Zygosity in Candida albicans

Claude Pujol,1 Shawn A. Messer,2 Michael Pfaller,2 and David R. Soll1*

Departments of Biological Sciences,1 Pathology, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 522422

Received 7 November 2002/ Returned for modification 13 December 2002/ Accepted 24 January 2003

Recently, evidence was presented that in a collection of fluconazole-resistant strains of Candida albicans there was a much higher proportion of homozygotes for the mating type locus (MTL) than in a collection of fluconazole-sensitive isolates, suggesting the possibility that when cells become MTL homozygous they acquire intrinsic drug resistance. To investigate this possibility, an opposite strategy was employed. First, drug susceptibility was measured in a collection of isolates selected for MTL homozygosity. The majority of these isolates had not been exposed to antifungal drugs. Second, the level of drug susceptibility was compared between spontaneously generated MTL-homozygous progeny and their MTL-heterozygous parent strains which had not been exposed to antifungal drugs. The results demonstrate that naturally occurring MTL-homozygous strains are not intrinsically more drug resistant, supporting the hypotheses that either the higher incidence of MTL homozygosity previously demonstrated among fluconazole-resistant isolates involved associated homozygosity of a drug resistance gene linked to the MTL locus, or that MTL-homozygous strains may be better at developing drug resistance upon exposure to the drug than MTL-heterozygous strains. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that a switch by an MTL-homozygous strain from the white to opaque phenotype, the latter functioning as the facilitator of mating, does not notably alter drug susceptibility.


* Corresponding author. Mailing address: 302 BBE, Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242. Phone: (319) 335-1117. Fax: (319) 335-2772. E-mail: david-soll{at}uiowa.edu.


Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, April 2003, p. 1207-1212, Vol. 47, No. 4
0066-4804/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/AAC.47.4.1207-1212.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.




This article has been cited by other articles:




Home Help [Feedback] [For Subscribers] [Archive] [Search] [Contents]
Clin. Vaccine Immunol. Clin. Microbiol. Rev.
J. Clin. Microbiol. ALL ASM JOURNALS

Copyright © 2003 by the American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.