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Eukaryotic Cell, December 2002, p. 865-874, Vol. 1, No. 6
1535-9778/02/$04.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/EC.1.6.865-874.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Gpa2, a G-Protein {alpha} Subunit Required for Hyphal Development in Candida albicans

Cristina Sánchez-Martínez and José Pérez-Martín*

Department of Microbial Biotechnology, Centro Nacional de Biotecnología CSIC, Campus de Cantoblanco-UAM, 28049 Madrid, Spain

Received 25 March 2002/ Accepted 10 September 2002

Candida albicans is able to respond to environmental changes by inducing a distinct morphological program, which is related to the ability to infect mammalian hosts. Although some of the signal transduction pathways involved in this response are known, it is not clear how the environmental signals are sensed and transmitted to these transduction cascades. In this work, we have studied the function of GPA2, a new gene from C. albicans, which encodes a G-protein {alpha}-subunit homologue. We demonstrate that Gpa2 plays an important role in the yeast-hypha dimorphic transition in the response of C. albicans to some environmental inducers. Deletion of both alleles of the GPA2 gene causes in vitro defects in morphological transitions in Spider medium and SLAD medium and in embedded conditions but not in medium containing serum. These defects cannot be reversed by exogenous addition of cyclic AMP. However, overexpression of HST7, which encodes a component of the filament-inducing mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascade, bypasses the Gpa2 requirement. We have obtained different gain-of-function and loss-of-function mutant alleles of the GPA2 gene, which we have introduced in several C. albicans genetic backgrounds. Our results indicate that, in response to environmental cues, Gpa2 is required for the regulation of a MAPK signaling pathway.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Microbial Biotechnology, Centro Nacional de Biotecnología-CSIC, Campus de Cantoblanco-UAM, 28049 Madrid, Spain. Phone: 34 91-585 4704. Fax: 34 91-585 4506. E-mail: jperez{at}cnb.uam.es.

Eukaryotic Cell, December 2002, p. 865-874, Vol. 1, No. 6
1535-9778/02/$04.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/EC.1.6.865-874.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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Copyright © 2002 by the American Society for Microbiology.