The zinc restriction and zinc toxicity are part of host defence, called nutritional immunity. The crucial role of zinc homeostasis in microbial survival within a host is established, but little is known about these processes in the opportunistic human fungal pathogen
Candida parapsilosis.
Our
in silico
predictions suggested the presence of at least six potential zinc transporters (ZnTs) in
C. parapsilosis
—orthologues of
ZRC1
,
ZRT3
and
ZRT101
—but an orthologue of
PRA1
zincophore was not found. In addition, we detected a species-specific gene expansion of the novel ZnT
ZRT2,
as we identified three orthologue genes in the genome of
C. parapsilosis
. Based on predictions, we created homozygous mutant strains of the potential ZnTs and characterized them. Despite the apparent gene expansion of
ZRT2
in
C. parapsilosis
, only
CpZRT21
was essential for growth in a zinc-depleted acidic environment, in addition we found that CpZrc1 is essential for zinc detoxification and also protects the fungi against the elimination of murine macrophages. Significantly, we demonstrated that
C. parapsilosis
forms zincosomes in a Zrc1-independent manner and zinc detoxification is mediated by the vacuolar importer CpZrc1. Our study defines the functions of
C. parapsilosis
ZnTs, including a species-specific survival and zinc detoxification system.