SummaryElevated expression of the plasma membrane drug efflux pump proteins Cdr1p and Cdr2p was shown to accompany decreased azole susceptibility in Candida albicans clinical isolates. DNA sequence analysis revealed extensive allelic heterozygosity, particularly of CDR2. Cdr2p alleles showed different abilities to transport azoles when individually expressed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Loss of heterozygosity, however, did not accompany decreased azole sensitivity in isogenic clinical isolates. Two adjacent non-synonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms (NS-SNPs), G1473A and I1474V in the putative transmembrane (TM) helix 12 of CDR2, were found to be present in six strains including two isogenic pairs. Site-directed mutagenesis showed that the TM-12 NS-SNPs, and principally the G1473A NS-SNP, contributed to functional differences between the proteins encoded by the two Cdr2p alleles in a single strain. Allele-specific PCR revealed that both alleles were equally frequent among 69 clinical isolates and that the majority of isolates (81%) were heterozygous at the G1473A/ I1474V locus, a significant (P Ͻ 0.001) deviation from the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. Phylogenetic analysis by maximum likelihood (Paml) identified 33 codons in CDR2 in which amino acid allelic changes showed a high probability of being selectively advantageous. In contrast, all codons in CDR1 were under purifying selection. Collectively, these results indicate that possession of two functionally different CDR2 alleles in individual strains may confer a selective advantage, but that this is not necessarily due to azole resistance.

Summary Saccharomyces cerevisiae

A novel vector was constructed to enable the integrative marking of individual genes and the affinity purification of interacting molecules within protein complexes from Candida albicans using a tandem 6×histidine and FLAG epitope tag. The system was verified by purifying the C. albicans septin complex (a self-associating complex of cytoskeletal proteins) from both yeast and hyphal cells. One-step affinity purification was insufficient for purification of the protein complex, whereas tandem affinity purification (TAP) gave an extensively purified protein complex with a very low background. Electrophoretic and mass spectrometry analysis showed that the affinity-purified C. albicans septin complex, which comprises predominantly CaCdc3p, CaCdc10p, CaCdc11p, CaCdc12p and CaSep7p, was not affected by cell morphology. The purified septin complex appeared to have a stoichiometry of 2 CaCdc3p, 1-2 CaCdc10p, 1 CaCdc11p, 2 CaCdc12p and ≤1 CaSep7p. The successful application of TAP to the purification and analysis of the C. albicans septin complex indicates that this technology will have much wider application to proteomic studies of this pathogenic fungus.

An investigation was carried out into the prevalence of thermophilic Campylobacter subspecies (spp.) and Cryptosporidium spp. in fresh fecal specimens collected from members of the gull family (Larus spp.) from three coastal locations of Northern Ireland. A total of 205 fresh fecal specimens were collected from gulls, of which 28 of 205 (13.7%) were positive for Campylobacter spp. and none of 205 for Cryptosporidium spp. Of these campylobacters, 21 of 28 (75%) isolates obtained belonged to the urease-positive thermophilic Campylobacter (UPTC) taxon, followed by five of 28 (17.9%) Campylobacter lari and 2/28 (7.1%) Campylobacter jejuni. It is significant that seagulls are the sole warm-blooded animal host of this bacterial taxon in Northern Ireland. It is proposed that physiological adaptation to starvation by gulls may lead to increased concentrations of urea through energy production from protein, yielding increased levels of urea for metabolism by UPTC organisms. In general, the possibility exists that environmental contamination of surface waters with campylobacters might be mediated by wild birds (such as gulls), where such waters are used for recreational purposes or where such waters are consumed untreated, might represent a risk to public health.

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