title: Widespread occurrence of chromosomal aneuploidy following the routine production of Candida albicans mutants.
abstract: It has come to our attention that approximately 35% of >100 published microarray datasets, where transcript levels were compared between two different strains, exhibit some form of chromosome-specific bias. While some of these arose from the use of strains whose aneuploidies were not known at the time, in a worrisome number of cases the recombinant strains have acquired additional aneuploidies that were not initially present in the parental strain. The aneuploidies often affected a different chromosome than the one harboring the insertion site. The affected strains originated from either CAI-4, RM1000, BWP17 or SN95 and were produced through a variety of strategies. These observations suggest that aneuploidies frequently occur during the production of recombinant strains and have an effect on global transcript profiles outside of the afflicted chromosome(s), thus raising the possibility of unintended phenotypic consequences. Thus, we propose that all Candida albicans mutants and strains should be tested for aneuploidy before being used in further studies. To this end, we describe a new rapid testing method, based on a multiplex quantitative PCR assay, that produces eight bands of distinct sizes from either the left or right arms of each C. albicans chromosome.
authors.affiliation: Biotechnology Research Institute, National Research Council of Canada, Montreal, QC, Canada H4P2R2.
authors.forename: Mélanie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Arbour
authors.forename: Elias
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Epp
authors.forename: Hervé
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hogues
authors.forename: Adnane
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sellam
authors.forename: Celine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lacroix
authors.forename: Jason
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rauceo
authors.forename: Aaron
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mitchell
authors.forename: Malcolm
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Whiteway
authors.forename: André
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nantel
mesh_terms: D000782:Aneuploidy; D002176:Candida albicans / Q000235:genetics*; D015825:Chromosomes, Fungal; D005827:Genetics, Microbial / Q000379:methods; D008967:Molecular Biology / Q000379:methods*; D009172:Mycology / Q000379:methods*; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods*