ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2011
Discovery of a phenotypic switch regulating sexual mating in the opportunistic fungal pathogen Candida tropicalis.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 79 papers.
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Who cites it
79 citing papers in PubMed, 120 citations in OpenAlex.
- Response ofmSphere · 2026Article
- Genetic and environmental control of parasexual reproduction in the pathogenicMicrobiology and molecular biology reviews : MMBR · 2025Review
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- In Vitro Fluconazole Exposure Promotes Switch Phenotypes With Altered Virulence Traits in the Pathogenic YeastIndian journal of microbiology · 2025Article
- Transcriptional control ofmBio · 2025Article
- An agricultural triazole induces genomic instability and haploid cell formation in the human fungal pathogen Candida tropicalis.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Candidiasis: Insights into Virulence Factors, Complement Evasion and Antifungal Drug Resistance.Microorganisms · 2025Review
- The impact of phenotypic heterogeneity on fungal pathogenicity and drug resistance.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2025Review
- Article
- A single gene mutation underpins metabolic adaptation and acquisition of filamentous competence in the emerging fungal pathogen Candida auris.PLoS pathogens · 2024Article
- Article
- Glucose depletion enables Candida albicans mating independently of the epigenetic white-opaque switch.Nature communications · 2023Article
- On the evolution of variation in sexual reproduction through the prism of eukaryotic microbes.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Review
- Farnesol and phosphorylation of the transcriptional regulator Efg1 affect Candida albicans white-opaque switching rates.PloS one · 2023Article
- Deciphering Colonies of Phenotypic Switching-Derived Morphotypes of the Pathogenic Yeast Candida tropicalis.Mycopathologia · 2022Article
- Ploidy changes in human fungal pathogens: Going beyond sexual reproduction.PLoS pathogens · 2022Article
- Multiple molecular events underlie stochastic switching between 2 heritable cell states in fungi.PLoS biology · 2022Article
- The emerging threat antifungal-resistantFrontiers in fungal biology · 2022Review
- Plasmid-Based CRISPR-Cas9 Editing in Multiple Candida Species.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2022Article
- BbWor1, a Regulator of Morphological Transition, Is Involved in Conidium-Hypha Switching, Blastospore Propagation, and Virulence in Beauveria bassiana.Microbiology spectrum · 2021Article
19 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
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Abstract
Sexual reproduction can promote genetic diversity in eukaryotes, and yet many pathogenic fungi have been labeled as obligate asexual species. It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that cryptic sexual programs may exist in some species, and that efficient mating requires the necessary developmental switch to be triggered. In this study we investigate Candida tropicalis, an important human fungal pathogen that has been reported to be asexual. Significantly, we demonstrate that C. tropicalis uses a phenotypic switch to regulate a cryptic program of sexual mating. Thus, diploid a and α cells must undergo a developmental transition to the mating-competent form, and only then does efficient cell-cell conjugation take place resulting in the formation of stable a/α tetraploids. We show that both the phenotypic switch and sexual mating depend on the conserved transcriptional regulator Wor1, which is regulated by temperature in other fungal species. In contrast, C. tropicalis mating occurs efficiently at both 25 °C and 37 °C, suggesting that it could occur in the mammalian host and have direct consequences for the outcome of an infection. Transcriptional profiling further reveals that ≈ 400 genes are differentially expressed between the two phenotypic states, including the regulatory factor Wor1. Taken together, our results demonstrate that C. tropicalis has a unique sexual program, and that entry to this program is controlled via a Wor1-mediated, metastable switch. These observations have direct implications for the regulation and evolution of cryptic sexual programs in related fungal pathogens.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.