A candida parapsilosis overexpression collection reveals genes required for pathogenesis

Sára E. Pál, Renáta Tóth, Joshua D. Nosanchuk, Csaba Vágvölgyi, Tibor Németh, Attila Gácser

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

Relative to the vast data regarding the virulence mechanisms of Candida albicans, there is limited knowledge on the emerging opportunistic human pathogen Candida parapsilosis. The aim of this study was to generate and characterize an overexpression mutant collection to identify and explore virulence factors in C. parapsilosis. With the obtained mutants, we investigated stress tolerance, morphology switch, biofilm formation, phagocytosis, and in vivo virulence in Galleria mel-lonella larvae and mouse models. In order to evaluate the results, we compared the data from the C. parapsilosis overexpression collection analysis to the results derived from previous deletion mutant library characterizations. Of the 37 overexpression C. parapsilosis mutants, we identified eight with altered phenotypes compared to the controls. This work is the first report to identify CPAR2_107240, CPAR2_108840, CPAR2_302400, CPAR2_406400, and CPAR2_602820 as contributors to C. parapsilosis virulence by regulating functions associated with host-pathogen interactions and biofilm forma-tion. Our findings also confirmed the role of CPAR2_109520, CPAR2_200040, and CPAR2_500180 in pathogenesis. This study was the first attempt to use an overexpression strategy to systematically assess gene function in C. parapsilosis, and our results demonstrate that this approach is effective for such investigations.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number97
Pages (from-to)1-22
Number of pages22
JournalJournal of Fungi
Volume7
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2021

Keywords

  • Candida parapsilosis
  • Gene overexpression
  • Mutant collection
  • Virulence factors

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
  • Plant Science
  • Microbiology (medical)

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