ArticleBMC biology2020
Genomic evidence for a hybrid origin of the yeast opportunistic pathogen Candida albicans.
Article in BMC biology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 40 papers.
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Who cites it
40 citing papers in PubMed, 83 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Wall incorporation of the β-1,3-glucan cross-linking protein Pir1 in the human pathogen Candida albicans is facilitated by the presence of two or more Pir repeat units.FEMS yeast research · 2025Article
- Insights into the origin, hybridisation and adaptation of Candida metapsilosis hybrid pathogens.PLoS pathogens · 2025Article
- Threats from theMicrobiology and molecular biology reviews : MMBR · 2024Review
- Impact of inter-species hybridisation on antifungal drug response in the Saccharomyces genus.BMC genomics · 2024Article
- Hybrid adaptation is hampered by Haldane's sieve.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Evolution and strain diversity advance exploration ofmSphere · 2024Review
- Hybrids unleashed: exploring the emergence and genomic insights of pathogenic yeast hybrids.Current opinion in microbiology · 2024Review
- Genomic epidemiology of antifungal resistance in human and avian isolates ofFrontiers in veterinary science · 2024Article
- Recent gene selection and drug resistance underscore clinical adaptation across Candida species.Nature microbiology · 2024Article
- Origin of fungal hybrids with pathogenic potential from warm seawater environments.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Evolution of loss of heterozygosity patterns in hybrid genomes of Candida yeast pathogens.BMC biology · 2023Article
- Candida albicans selection for human commensalism results in substantial within-host diversity without decreasing fitness for invasive disease.PLoS biology · 2023Article
- Multiplexed target enrichment of coding and non-coding transcriptomes enables studyingFrontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2023Article
- Distribution and antifungal susceptibility pattern ofVirulence · 2022Review
- Ploidy changes in human fungal pathogens: Going beyond sexual reproduction.PLoS pathogens · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundOpportunistic yeast pathogens of the genus Candida are an important medical problem. Candida albicans, the most prevalent Candida species, is a natural commensal of humans that can adopt a pathogenic behavior. This species is highly heterozygous and cannot undergo meiosis, adopting instead a parasexual cycle that increases genetic variability and potentially leads to advantages under stress conditions. However, the origin of C. albicans heterozygosity is unknown, and we hypothesize that it could result from ancestral hybridization. We tested this idea by analyzing available genomes of C. albicans isolates and comparing them to those of hybrid and non-hybrid strains of other Candida species.
resultsOur results show compelling evidence that C. albicans is an evolved hybrid. The genomic patterns observed in C. albicans are similar to those of other hybrids such as Candida orthopsilosis MCO456 and Candida inconspicua, suggesting that it also descends from a hybrid of two divergent lineages. Our analysis indicates that most of the divergence between haplotypes in C. albicans heterozygous blocks was already present in a putative heterozygous ancestor, with an estimated 2.8% divergence between homeologous chromosomes. The levels and patterns of ancestral heterozygosity found cannot be fully explained under the paradigm of vertical evolution and are not consistent with continuous gene flux arising from lineage-specific events of admixture.
conclusionsAlthough the inferred level of sequence divergence between the putative parental lineages (2.8%) is not clearly beyond current species boundaries in Saccharomycotina, we show here that all analyzed C. albicans strains derive from a single hybrid ancestor and diverged by extensive loss of heterozygosity. This finding has important implications for our understanding of C. albicans evolution, including the loss of the sexual cycle, the origin of the association with humans, and the evolution of virulence traits.
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