Candida glabrata: a deadly companion?

Abstract

The yeast Candida glabrata has become a major fungal opportunistic pathogen of humans since the 1980s. Contrary to what its name suggests, it is much closer, phylogenetically, to the model yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae than to the most prevalent human fungal pathogen, Candida albicans. Its similarity to S. cerevisiae fortunately extends to their amenability to molecular genetics methods. C. glabrata is now described as part of the Nakaseomyces clade, which includes two new pathogens and other environmental species. C. glabrata is likely a commensal species of the human digestive tract, but systemic infections of immunocompromised patients are often fatal. In addition to being the subject of active medical research, other studies on C. glabrata focus on fundamental aspects of evolution of yeast genomes and adaptation. For example, the genome of C. glabrata has undergone major gene and intron loss compared to S. cerevisiae. It is also an apparently asexual species, a feature that inevitably leads to questions about the species' evolutionary past, present and future. On-going research with this yeast continues to address various aspects of adaptation to the human host and mechanisms of evolution in the Saccharomycetaceae, major model organisms for biology.

Structural Hot Spots Determine Functional Diversity of the Candida glabrata Epithelial Adhesin Family

“…These patterns and underlying regulatory mechanisms are likely to be highly complex and appear to involve both global mechanisms through silencing of subtelomeric regions as well as gene-specific mechanisms (48,49). As such, our study might contribute to the development of novel antimycotics (50), for example the design of anti-adhesive multivalent carbohydrates (51), to effectively combat emerging fungal pathogens of the C. glabrata clade (19,46).…”

“…10), suggesting that their binding specificities differ from C. glabrata Epa adhesins. Thus, specific adaptation of the CBL2 motifs of Epa adhesins might have evolved after the DD-N and W-R core motifs and account for the differences in host specificities observed for the different members of the glabrata group of Nakaseomyces (19,46). It is important to point out, however, that residues outside the CBL2 region must also contribute to ligand binding specificity, given the fact that we found four cases in which two different Epa proteins have identical CBL2 motifs but distinct ligand-binding patterns.…”

Secretion of the acid trehalase encoded by the CgATH1 gene allows trehalose fermentation by Candida glabrata

“…During their evolution, these yeasts underwent a whole-genome duplication event (Dujon et al 2004;Wolfe 2006;Gabaldón et al 2013), and while the genome of most Saccharomyces yeasts retained or even expanded some gene families to allow, for example, efficient sugar utilization and fermentation (Brown et al 2010), the C. glabrata genome underwent a reductive evolution to streamline its metabolic capacity for its life and success as a commensal pathogen (Hittinger et al 2004;Domergue et al 2005;Kaur et al 2005;Roetzer et al 2011;Brunke and Hube 2013). However, and despite its increasing importance, little attention has been focused on the basic biology and general cellular properties of this yeast (Bialkova and Subik 2006;Roetzer et al 2011;Bolotin-Fukuhara and Fairhead 2014).…”

Phenotypic and Molecular Evaluation of Echinocandin Susceptibility of Candida glabrata, Candida bracarensis, and Candida nivariensis Strains Isolated during 30 Years in Argentina

“…Candida glabrata species complex includes three human-pathogenic species: C. glabrata sensu stricto, C. nivariensis, and C. bracarensis (1,2). Candida glabrata sensu stricto accounts for 15 to 20% of all cases of Candida infections worldwide, and it is the second most common cause of candidemia in the United States (3,4). In Latin American countries, such as Argentina, C. glabrata ranked fourth, representing 4% of the candidemia cases (5).…”