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Infection and Immunity, June 2001, p. 3939-3946, Vol. 69, No. 6
Laboratory of
Biophysics1 and Laboratory of
Immunology,2 School of Biological Sciences
and Institute of Microbiology, Seoul National University, Seoul
151-742, Republic of Korea
Received 14 November 2000/Returned for modification 11 December
2000/Accepted 19 March 2001
In some lower eukaryotes, D-erythroascorbic acid, a
five-carbon analog of L-ascorbic acid, is present instead
of L-ascorbic acid. We have cloned ALO1, the
gene encoding D-arabinono-1,4-lactone oxidase, which
catalyzes the final step of D-erythroascorbic acid biosynthesis in Candida albicans. The ALO1 gene
contained a continuous open reading frame of 1,671 bp that encodes a
polypeptide consisting of 557 amino acids with a calculated molecular
mass of 63,428 Da. To investigate the functional roles of
D-erythroascorbic acid in C. albicans, we
disrupted or overexpressed the ALO1 gene. In the
alo1/alo1 null mutants, the activity of
D-arabinono-1,4-lactone oxidase was completely lost and
D-erythroascorbic acid could not be detected. When
ALO1 on a multicopy plasmid was transformed in
C. albicans, the enzyme activity and the intracellular
D-erythroascorbic acid level were increased up to 3.4-fold
and 4.0-fold, respectively. The alo1/alo1 null mutants of
C. albicans showed increased sensitivity towards oxidative
stress. Overexpression of ALO1 made the cells more
resistant to the same stress. The alo1/alo1 mutants showed defective hyphal growth and attenuated virulence. Taken together, our
results suggest that D-erythroascorbic acid functions as an important antioxidant and can be considered one of the virulence factors enhancing the pathogenicity of C. albicans.
0019-9567/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/IAI.69.6.3939-3946.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Deficiency of D-Erythroascorbic Acid
Attenuates Hyphal Growth and Virulence of Candida
albicans
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Laboratory of
Biophysics, School of Biological Sciences, and Institute of
Microbiology, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742, Republic of
Korea. Phone: (82) (2) 880 6703. Fax: (82) (2) 888 4911. E-mail:
kangsaou{at}plaza.snu.ac.kr.
Infection and Immunity, June 2001, p. 3939-3946, Vol. 69, No. 6
0019-9567/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/IAI.69.6.3939-3946.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
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