CANPA
Genome sequencing of clinical and environmental strains of pathogenic yeast Candida parapsilosis
During the last three decades invasive candidiasis has become the most commonly diagnosed fungal infection worldwide. Although Candida albicans remains the most prevalent species causing candidiasis, the relevance of other Candida species such as C. glabrata, C. parapsilosis and C. tropicalis have significantly increased in recent years. Of these, the epidemiology of C. parapsilosis shows remarkable differences compared to C. albicans. C. parapsilosis has a unique genetic background, which is associated with its high capacity to cause disease in neonates.  Understanding the molecular basis of pathogenesis in the different Candida species requires the identification of common and specific virulence factors. Rapid development of high-throughput DNA sequencing enables this. Interestingly, studies performed during the last few years have revealed important genetic differences not only between Candida species, but also between different isolates of the same species. Although the comparison of the genomes of different C. albicans strains have produced highly valuable data, the comparative genomics of different strains of emerging Candida species, like C. parapsilosis, has never been performed. For this, we sequenced three strains: the clinical isolate GA1, which has been extensively used in the study of C. parapsilosis virulence, and two environmental isolates from different geographical locations (CBS1954 and CBS6318).
During the last three decades invasive candidiasis has become the most commonly diagnosed fungal infection worldwide. Although Candida albicans remains the most prevalent species causing candidiasis, the relevance of other Candida species such as C. glabrata, C. parapsilosis and C. tropicalis have significantly increased in recent years. Of these, the epidemiology of C. parapsilosis shows remarkable differences compared to C. albicans. C. parapsilosis has a unique genetic background, which is associated with its high capacity to cause disease in neonates.  Understanding the molecular basis of pathogenesis in the different Candida species requires the identification of common and specific virulence factors. Rapid development of high-throughput DNA sequencing enables this. Interestingly, studies performed during the last few years have revealed important genetic differences not only between Candida species, but also between different isolates of the same species. Although the comparison of the genomes of different C. albicans strains have produced highly valuable data, the comparative genomics of different strains of emerging Candida species, like C. parapsilosis, has never been performed. For this, we sequenced three strains: the clinical isolate GA1, which has been extensively used in the study of C. parapsilosis virulence, and two environmental isolates from different geographical locations (CBS1954 and CBS6318).