Phylogenetic analysis of five medically important Candida species as deduced on the basis of small ribosomal subunit RNA sequences

Abstract

~The classification of species belonging to the genus Candida Berkhout is problematic. Therefore, we have determined the small ribosomal subunit RNA (srRNA) sequences of the type strains of three human pathogenic Candida species; Candida krusei, C. lusitaniae and C. tropicalis. The srRNA sequences were aligned with published eukaryotic srRNA sequences and evolutionary trees were inferred using a matrix optimization method. An evolutionary tree comprising all available eukaryotic srRNA sequences, including two other pathogenic Candida species, C. albicans and C. glabrata, showed that the yeasts diverge rather late in the course of eukaryote evolution, namely at the same depth as green plants, ciliates and some smaller taxa. The cluster of the higher fungi consists of 10 ascomycetes and ascomycete-like species with the first branches leading to Neurospora crassa, Pneumocystis carinii, Candida lusitaniae and C. krusei, in that order. Next there is a dichotomous divergence leading to a group consisting of Torulaspora delbrueckii, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, C. glabrata and Kluyveromyces l a d s and a smaller group comprising C. tropicalis and C. albicans. The divergence pattern obtained on the basis of srRNA sequence data is also compared to various other chemotaxonomic data.

Candida dubliniensis: phylogeny and putative virulence factors

“…Comparison of small rRNA gene nucleotide sequences from various species was performed using multiple sequence alignments generated using the program CLUSTAL w. The sequences compared included those from C. dubliniensis (this study; accession no. X99399), C. albicans (Hendriks et al, 1989;X53497), C. tropicalis (Hendriks et al, 1991;M55527), C. glabrata (Wong & ClarkWalker, 1990; X51831), C. lusitaniae (Hendriks et al, 1991 ; M55526), C. krusei (Hendriks et al, 1991;M5552S) and Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Rubtsov et al, 1980 ;M27607). These data were then used to construct a genetic distance matrix incorporating corrections for multiple base changes according to the method of Jukes & Cantor (1969).…”

Phylogeny among the basidiomycetous yeasts inferred from small subunit ribosomal DNA sequence

“…18s rDNA (and rRNA) sequences have been especially useful in elucidating the evolution and phylogeny of fungi (Hendriks et al, 1991(Hendriks et al, a, b, 1992Berbee & Taylor, 1992a, b ;Van de Peer et al, 1992;Nishida & Sugiyama, 1993). We report the 18s rDNA sequence and phylogenetic relationships of seven species of basidiomycetous yeasts.…”

Comparative genomics of yeast species: new insights into their biology

“…Initial studies based on small ribosomal RNA sequences proposed an evolutionary proximity between C. albicans and S. cerevisiae, with the divergence estimated having occurred about 140 million years ago [17]. More recently, studies based on a large set of protein sequences have estimated that S. cerevisiae and C. albicans diverged about 841 million years ago [16].…”