Candida secreted aspartyl proteinases - Expression and function during infection

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6 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The opportunistic fungal pathogen Candida albicans possesses a repertoire of virulence attributes in order to colonise, infect, and evade host defence mechanisms. In particular, the secreted aspartic proteinases (Saps), encoded by a SAP gene family with ten members, appear to play a central role in C. albicans pathogenicity as demonstrated primarily through gene expression studies, the using SAP-deficient mutants, and proteinase inhibitors. In recent years we have been interested in determining whether SAP gene expression patterns observed in vitro and in animal models are representative of those expressed in the context of human disease. The in vivo analysis of SAP gene expression profiles in over 130 oral and vaginal clinical C. albicans samples confirmed the differential expression of the SAP family in humans and correlated the expression of specific SAP genes with active disease and anatomical location (J. Inf. Dis., 2003, 188, 469-479). To extend these qualitative findings, we have recently established real-time RT-PCR analysis of the SAP genes to determine the quantitative levels of each SAP mRNA transcript present in the different infection situations. In preliminary experiments, we have first assessed the quantitative SAP1-10 expression profiles in C. albicans cells during growth in YPD and YCB/BSA (Sap2-inducing medium). All the SAP genes could be detected at most time points in both YPD and YCB/BSA and SAP9 was consistently the most highly expressed gene. In YPD, no significant changes in SAP1-10 expression were observed throughout the time course; however, the predicted upregulation of SAP2 expression in YCB/BSA was clearly evident by 6 h, with a peak induction at 24 h at which point SAP2 was induced to levels 20-fold that of ACT1. The real time RT-PCR assay is presently being used to assess the quantitative expression of SAP1-10 during oral and vaginal infections in humans to discover which SAP genes are the most highly expressed and which are up- or down-regulated during mucosal Candida infection
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)139 - 144
Number of pages6
JournalMikologia Lekarska
Volume11
Issue number2
Publication statusPublished - 2004

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