High-throughput functional profiling of the human fungal pathogen Candida albicans genome

Res Microbiol. 2023 Mar-Apr;174(3):104025. doi: 10.1016/j.resmic.2022.104025. Epub 2022 Dec 30.

Abstract

Candida albicans is a major fungal pathogen of humans. Although its genome has been sequenced more than two decades ago, there are still over 4300 uncharacterized C. albicans genes. We previously generated an ORFeome as well as a collection of destination vectors to facilitate overexpression of C. albicans ORFs. Here, we report the construction of ∼2500 overexpression mutants and their evaluation by in vitro spotting on rich medium and in a liquid pool experiment in rich medium, allowing the identification of genes whose overexpression has a fitness cost. The candidates were further validated at the individual strain level. This new resource allows large-scale screens in different growth conditions to be performed routinely. Altogether, based on the concept of identifying functionally related genes by cluster analysis, the availability of this overexpression mutant collection will facilitate the characterization of gene functions in C. albicans.

Keywords: Bar-seq; Candida albicans; Large-scale systematic studies; ORFeome; Overexpression mutants.

MeSH terms

  • Candida albicans* / genetics
  • Fungal Proteins / genetics
  • Genome, Fungal*

Substances

  • Fungal Proteins