title: The Regulatory Subunit of Protein Kinase A (Bcy1) inCandida albicansPlays Critical Roles in Filamentation and White-Opaque Switching but Is Not Essential for Cell Growth.
abstract: The conserved cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) is composed of the regulatory and catalytic subunits and acts as the central component of the cAMP signaling pathway. In the human fungal pathogenCandida albicans, the PKA regulatory subunit Bcy1 plays a critical role in the regulation of cell differentiation and death. It has long been considered that Bcy1 is essential for cell viability inC. albicans. In the current study, surprisingly, we found that Bcy1 is not required for cell growth, and we successfully generated abcy1/bcy1null mutant inC. albicans. Deletion ofBCY1leads to multiple cellular morphologies and promotes the development of filaments. Filamentous and smooth colonies are two typical morphological types of thebcy1/bcy1mutant, which can undergo spontaneous switching between the two types. Cells of filamentous colonies grow better on a number of different culture media and have a higher survival rate than cells of smooth colonies. In addition, deletion ofBCY1significantly increased the frequency of white-to-opaque switching on N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc)-containing medium. Thebcy1/bcy1null mutant generated herein provides the field a new resource to study the biological functions of the cAMP signaling pathway inC. albicans.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Mycology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijing, China; College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijing, China.
authors.forename: Xuefen
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Mycology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijing, China; College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijing, China.
authors.forename: Chengjun
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Mycology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijing, China; College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijing, China.
authors.forename: Qiushi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Mycology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijing, China; College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijing, China.
authors.forename: Guanghua
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Huang
keywords: Bcy1; Candida albicans; PKA regulatory subunit; cAMP signaling pathway; filamentation; white-opaque switching