Collaboration between Antagonistic Cell Type Regulators Governs Natural Variation in the Candida albicans Biofilm and Hyphal Gene Expression Network
Eunsoo Do, Max V. Cravener, Manning Y. Huang, Gemma E. May, C. Joel McManus, Aaron P. Mitchell
Abstract
Clinical isolates of all pathogens vary in the strength of traits linked to disease. In this study, we focused on variation in a pathogenicity trait of the fungal pathogen Candida albicans, biofilm formation. This trait is under the control of the cell type regulator Efg1. Expression of Efg1 is known from previous studies to be repressed by a second cell type regulator, Wor1. However, we found that natural variation in biofilm formation and biofilm-related gene expression was driven by collaboration between Efg1 and Wor1. Our findings show that analysis of natural isolates can reveal unexpected features of gene function, even for well-studied genes.