microbiology, Vol 143, 289-295, Copyright © 1997 by Society for General Microbiology

ARTICLES

WO-2, a stable aneuploid derivative of Candida albicans strain WO-1, can switch from white to opaque and form hyphae

BB Magee and PT Magee
Department of Genetics and Cell Biology, University of Minnesota, St Paul 55108, USA. bebe@biosci.cbs.umn.edu

Candida albicans strain WO-2 was isolated as a spontaneous derivative of the white-opaque switching strain WO-1. The electrophoretic karyotype of WO-2 lacks two bands which are found in the parent. These bands correspond to one homologue of chromosome 7 and to a translocation product containing parts of chromosomes 6 and 5. Probing a blot of the karyotype demonstrated that the genetic material in these bands had been lost, yielding an aneuploid strain. UV-irradiation experiments showed that auxotrophs due to mutation in genes located in this region predominated, supporting the conclusion that WO-2 is partially haploid. WO-2 contained about 10% of its genome in the haploid state, and it grew with a doubling time of about twice that of its parent. However, it was able to undergo both the yeast-to-hyphal transition and the white-opaque transition. Hence, these processes do not require perfect diploidy.

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