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Infection and Immunity, February 2005, p. 1239-1242, Vol. 73, No. 2
0019-9567/05/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/IAI.73.2.1239-1242.2005
Copyright © 2005, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Weihui Guo,
,
and
Julia R. Köhler*
Division of Infectious Disease, Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
Received 16 September 2004/ Accepted 8 October 2004
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We developed a heterologous dominant marker to investigate morphogenesis of C. albicans. We chose a gene conferring resistance to nourseothricin, since wild-type C. albicans is susceptible to moderate nourseothricin concentrations (250 to 450 µg/ml). Codon usage of the Streptomyces noursei nat1 gene, encoding nourseothricin acetyltransferase, was adapted to that of C. albicans to generate CaNAT1 (6, 8). De novo synthesis was performed by Bionexus (Oakland, Calif.). CaNAT1 was placed under the control of the ACT1 promoter in vector pAU34, which contains URA3 as a selectable marker (15), generating pJK850. We transformed strain CAI4 (ura3/ura3) (5) with pJK850 to be uridine prototrophic. The resulting strains JKC435 and JKC436 were re sistant to 250 µg of nourseothricin/ml, as shown in Fig. 1. CAI4 was also transformed with the empty vector pAU34 to be uridine prototrophic (15). The resulting control strains JKC437 and JKC438 were sensitive to nourseothricin.
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FIG. 1. CaNAT1 confers nourseothricin resistance on C. albicans. The ura3/ura3 strain CAI4 was transformed with the empty vector pAU34, which bears the selectable marker URA3, giving rise to JKC347 and JKC348, and with pAU34 containing CaNAT1, giving rise to JKC345 and JKC346. Transformants were streaked onto medium to select for uridine prototrophy (sc-ura). They were then replica plated onto YPD containing 250 µg of nourseothricin/ml (YPD+nat250). 1, JKC437; 2, JKC438; 3, JKC436; 4, JKC435.
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FIG. 2. Cells expressing CaNAT1 do not exhibit a growth disadvantage. (A) Competition between wild-type SC5314 and the DLH1/dlh1::CaNAT1 strain JKC336. Fresh cultures of the two strains were inoculated in equal parts into rich medium at a density of ca. 1 cell/ml. The numbers of total colonies and nourseothricin-resistant colonies were determined at 48 h, and the proportion of CaNAT1-expressing cells to wild-type cells was calculated. The cultures were diluted in fresh medium after 48 h to the starting density of ca. 1 cell/ml. This process was repeated three times. Two separate experiments were performed. Per time point, three samples were taken to determine numbers of CFU. Bars represent standard deviations. (B) Competition between strains CAF2-1 (URA3/ura3) and CAI4 (ura3/ura3). To control for the sensitivity of the competition experiment protocol, the ura3/ura3 homozygote CAI4 was tested in competition with the URA3/ura3 CAF2-1 heterozygote. For colony counts, cultures were plated onto YPD. They were replica plated onto medium to select for uridine prototrophy to determine the percentage of uridine-prototrophic and uridine-auxotrophic (ura) colonies. Two separate experiments were performed. Per time point, three samples were taken to determine numbers of CFU. Bars represent standard deviations. (C) Growth rates of CAF2-1 (URA3/ura3) and CAI4 (ura3/ura3). Strains were diluted from an overnight culture in 2x yeast extract-peptone-8% dextrose to an optical density at 600 nm (OD600) of 0.04 in 50 ml of 2x yeast extract-peptone-8% dextrose. Growth conditions were the same as those for the competition experiments. The OD600 was measured every 2 h. Results of two separate experiments are shown.
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FIG. 3. Expression of CaNAT1 does not affect filamentous growth. Filamentous growth of SC5314 (URA3/URA3) (5) was compared with that of its daughter strain JKC439 (p-ACT1 CaNAT1 URA3/URA3). CAF2-1 (URA3/ura3) and its daughter strain CAI4 (ura3/ura3) (5) were used as controls for decreased filamentous growth. Fresh cultures of the strains were diluted to an OD600 of 0.1. Three microliters of each strain's cell suspension was spotted at equal distances from the others around the diameter of an agar plate, with six spots per plate. Spots on medium 199, pH 7, and Spider medium after various periods of incubation are shown. d, days. Bar, 1 mm.
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FIG. 4. CaNAT1 can mark a recyclable cassette for deletion of both alleles of a C. albicans gene. (A) Genomic DNA of the following strains was digested with NsiI: lane 1, wild-type SC5314; lane 2, JKC377, and lane 3, JKC378 (CaMOS10/Camos10::CaNAT1-FLP cassette); lane 4, JKC380, and lane 5, JKC382 (CaMOS10/Camos10::FRT); lane 6, JKC390, and lane 7, JKC392 (Camos10::FRT/Camos10::CaNAT1-FLP cassette); and lane 8, JKC393, and lane 9, JKC395 (Camos10::FRT/Camos10::FRT). The CaNAT1-FLP cassette is FRT-p-SAP2-FLP-t-CaACT1-p-AgTEF1-CaNAT1-t-AgTEF1-FRT. Left arrows show locations of molecular weight markers. Right arrows show genomic fragments. (B) Cartoon of the CaMOS10 locus, the deletion construct, the construct to reintegrate an intact CaMOS10 allele, and the probe used in Southern blotting. ORF, open reading frame. (C) Genomic DNA of the following strains was digested with NsiI: lane 1, wild-type SC5314; lane 2, JKC393, and lane 3, JKC395 (Camos10::FRT/Camos10::FRT); and lanes 4 and 5, transformants of JKC393 (lane 4, JKC504, and lane 5, JKC505), and lanes 6 and 7, transformants of JKC395 (lane 6, JKC506, and lane 7, JKC507) (Camos10::FRT/Camos10::FRT/CaMOS10 CaNAT1).
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FIG. 5. Nourseothricin resistance phenotypes of clinical isolates of C. albicans and other Candida species. Clinical Candida isolates and their CaNAT1-containing transformants were streaked next to each other on YPD. They were then replica plated onto YPD with 250 (YPD+nat250) or 450 (YPD+nat450) µg of nourseothricin/ml. (A) C. albicans bloodstream isolates. 1, JKC8 (wild-type bloodstream isolate); 2, JKC410 (JKC8 transformed with pJK850); 3, JKC9 (wild-type bloodstream isolate); 4, JKC412 (JKC9 transformed with pJK799); 5, JKC7 (wild-type bloodstream isolate); and 6, JKC408 (JKC7 transformed with pJK850). (B) C. parapsilosis clinical isolates. 1, JKC355 (wild-type clinical isolate); 2, JKC414 (JKC355 transformed with pJK850); 3, JKC357 (wild-type clinical isolate); 4, JKC416 (JKC357 transformed with pJK799); 5, JKC358 (wild-type clinical isolate); and 6, JKC419 (JKC358 transformed with pJK850). (C) Candida species clinical isolates. 1, JKC356 (C. lusitaniae wild type); 2, JKC420 (JKC356 transformed with pJK799); 3, JKC361 (C. glabrata wild type); 4, JKC424 (JKC361 transformed with pJK850); 5, JKC359 (C. kefyr wild type); and 6, JKC426 (JKC359 transformed with pJK850).
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FIG. 6. Nourseothricin-resistant strains transformed with CaNAT1 contain the CaNAT1 sequence. Genomic DNA from untransformed parent strains (a) and from two each of their nourseothricin-resistant transformants (b and c) was slot blotted and probed with a portion of the CaNAT1 open reading frame. The strains were as follows: 1a, SC5314; 1b, JKC406; 1c, JKC336; 2, 3, and 4, C. albicans bloodstream isolates (2a, JKC7; 2b, JKC406; 2c, JKC375; 3a, JKC8; 3b, JKC410; 3c, JKC411; 4a, JKC9; 4b, JKC412; and 4c, JKC413); 5, 6, and 7, C. parapsilosis clinical isolates (5a, JKC355; 5b, JKC414; 5c, JKC415; 6a, JKC357; 6b, JKC416; 6c, JKC417; 7a, JKC358; 7b, JKC418; and 7c, JKC419); 8 and 9, C. lusitaniae clinical isolates (8a, JKC356; 8b, JKC420; 8c, JKC421; 9a, JKC360; 9b, JKC422; and 9c, JKC423); 10, C. glabrata clinical isolate (10a, JKC361; 10b, JKC424; and 10c, JKC425); and 11, C. kefyr clinical isolate (11a, JKC359; 11b, JKC426; and 11c, JKC407).
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Nucleotide sequence accession number. The nucleotide sequence of CaNAT1 has been deposited in GenBank under accession number AY854370.
We thank Bill Fonzi and Joachim Morschhäuser for generous gifts of strains and plasmids. We thank Jeanne Latourneau, Eileen Gorss, Alex McAdam, and Oscar Torres for clinical Candida isolates and information on identification procedures. We are grateful to Simon Dove, Qinghua Feng, Steffen Rupp, Bob Husson, and Horst Schroten for critical comments on the manuscript.
J.S. and W.G. contributed equally to this work. ![]()
Present address: Division of Endocrinology, Children's Hospital, Boston, Mass. ![]()
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