Yeast-mycelial conversion induced by N-acetyl-D-glucosamine in Candida albicans

Simonetti, N; Strippoli, V.; Cassone, Antonio

doi:10.1038/250344a0

Cited by 206 publications

(137 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…While the pH values at which ethanol induced germ tube formation were considerably below those reported for other systems (Evans et al, 1975;Simonetti et al, 1974;Mitchell & Soll, 1979), replacing ethanol with GlcNAc, proline or DMEM in our system gave similar results (unpublished data). Thus it would seem that the composition of the induction medium plays a major role in the sensitivity to pH.…”

Section: J H P O L L a C K A N D T Hashimoto Discussionsupporting

confidence: 69%

Ethanol-induced Germ Tube Formation in Candida albicans

Pollack¹,

Hashimoto²

1985

Microbiology

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Section: J H P O L L a C K A N D T Hashimoto Discussionsupporting

confidence: 69%

Ethanol-induced Germ Tube Formation in Candida albicans

Pollack¹,

Hashimoto²

1985

Microbiology

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“…The role of GlcNAc signaling in C. albicans has been unclear, because GlcNAc was initially identified as an inducer of hyphal growth in a screen for a chemically defined alternative to serum (Simonetti et al, 1974). Therefore, we took advantage of NGT1-GFP as a reporter gene to examine a possible biological role for GlcNAc signaling.…”

Section: Ngt1-gfp Is Induced By Macrophage Phagocytosismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The biological role for GlcNAc signaling in C. albicans has not been well defined; the ability of GlcNAc to induce hyphae was discovered in a search for a chemically defined inducers in vitro (Simonetti et al, 1974). Subsequent studies revealed that the GlcNAc catabolism genes (HXK1, DAC1, and NAG1) contribute to the virulence of C. albicans in a mouse tail-vein injection model of pathogenesis (Singh et al, 2001;Yamada-Okabe et al, 2001).…”

Section: Role Of Ngt1 During Macrophage Phagocytosismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…GlcNAc was selected as the inducer of hyphal growth to better understand its role in this process, because the teleological basis for the effects of GlcNAc has not been understood from previous studies. GlcNAc was first reported to induce hyphae over 30 years ago in a screen for chemically defined inducers of hyphal growth in vitro (Simonetti et al, 1974). Subsequent studies revealed C. albicans is capable of taking up GlcNAc and using it as an energy source, whereas the nonpathogenic S. cerevisiae lacks the proteins needed to transport and catabolize GlcNAc (Kumar et al, 2000;Singh et al, 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One of the strongest known inducers of hyphal growth is serum. Screens for chemically defined inducers have found that nutrients, such as the amino sugar GlcNAc (Simonetti et al, 1974) and certain amino acids (Odds, 1988;Maidan et al, 2005), will also stimulate hyphal growth. Environmental conditions also contribute to hyphal induction, as it occurs optimally at 37°C and can be stimulated by alkaline pH and 5% CO 2 (Davis, 2003;Sudbery et al, 2004;Klengel et al, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Identification of anN-Acetylglucosamine Transporter That Mediates Hyphal Induction inCandida albicans

Álvarez

Konopka

2007

MBoC

127

172

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The sugar N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) plays an important role in nutrient sensing and cellular regulation in a wide range of organisms from bacteria to humans. In the fungal pathogen Candida albicans, GlcNAc induces a morphological transition from budding to hyphal growth. Proteomic comparison of plasma membrane proteins from buds and from hyphae induced by GlcNAc identified a novel hyphal protein (Ngt1) with similarity to the major facilitator superfamily of transporters. An Ngt1-GFP fusion was detected in the plasma membrane after induction with GlcNAc, but not other related sugars. Ngt1-GFP was also induced by macrophage phagocytosis, suggesting a role for the GlcNAc response in signaling entry into phagolysosomes. NGT1 is needed for efficient GlcNAc uptake and for the ability to induce hyphae at low GlcNAc concentrations. High concentrations of GlcNAc could bypass the need for NGT1 to induce hyphae, indicating that elevated intracellular levels of GlcNAc induce hyphal formation. Expression of NGT1 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae promoted GlcNAc uptake, indicating that Ngt1 acts directly as a GlcNAc transporter. Transport mediated by Ngt1 was specific, as other sugars could not compete for the uptake of GlcNAc. Thus, Ngt1 represents the first eukaryotic GlcNAc transporter to be discovered. The presence of NGT1 homologues in the genome sequences of a wide range of eukaryotes from yeast to mammals suggests that they may also function in the cellular processes regulated by GlcNAc, including those that underlie important diseases such as cancer and diabetes. INTRODUCTIONN-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) is an amino sugar that carries out important roles in a broad range of cells from bacteria to humans. One aspect of GlcNAc function is to mediate cellular signaling. In bacteria, GlcNAc induces components that are important for colonization of human hosts, including fimbrins that mediate adhesion to host cells (Sohanpal et al., 2004), multidrug exporter genes (Hirakawa et al., 2006) and Curli fibers that promote biofilm formation (Barnhart et al., 2006). In mammals, GlcNAc is a key sensor of nutrient status that is involved in insulin signaling, cell cycle control, and other essential processes. Nutritional effects that lead to increased GlcNAc levels result in its conversion to UDP-GlcNAc and subsequent attachment to proteins on serine or threonine residues in a dynamic manner that is analogous to modification of proteins by phosphorylation (Slawson and Hart, 2003;Zachara and Hart, 2006). In fact, the interplay between O-GlcNAc modification and phosphorylation of proteins regulates many critical transcription factors, such as c-myc and p53 (Chou and Hart, 2001;Yang et al., 2006). O-GlcNAc modification also regulates other processes including proteosome function (Zachara and Hart, 2004). In addition to these regulatory roles, GlcNAc contributes to the N-linked glycosylation, glycophosphatidylinositol (GPI) anchor addition to proteins and is polymerized into chitin, which forms part of the fungal cell wall and the exoskele...

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Growth of Candida albicans on artificial D‐glucose derivatives

Hrmová

Šturdı́k

Košík

et al. 1983

J of Basic Microbiology

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Growth of Candida albicans on artificiaI D-gluCOSe derivatives (amino-, methyl-, acylglycosides and N-acetyl-D-glucosamine derivatives) was examined with the aim to find new inducers of the mycelial growth form. For representatives of particular groups (n-D-ghmopyranosylamine, Dglucose and N-acetyl-D-glucosamine) some physiological (growth, doubling time, specific growth rate, oxygen uptake and CO, production, respiration quotients), biochemical (dry weight yield, protein content, ethanol production), and morphological parameters (length-width quotient, volume, percentage of budding cells) of cultures in different growth phases were determined with regard to the type and concentration of carbon source. The results obtained may be valuable for studies of the structure-utilization relationships of carbohydrate derivatives as well as for the elucidation of yeast-myoelial transition in Candida albicans induced by unphysiological hexoses degradable intracellularly.Candida albimns is morphologically a pluripotent yeast-like microorganism growing under certain cultivation conditions in two habits (as budding and true hyphal cells).Despite intensive research by numerous laboratories (SIMONETTI et al. 1974, LAND et al. 1975, MITCHELL and SOLL 1979, SHEPHERD et al. 1980) definite knowledge about the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon has not been obtained.Recently, we have proposed (HRMOVA and DROBNICA 1981, 1982) that low intracellular glucose concentration may be sufficient in itself to govern the mycelial form of development. Based on this idea, we presume that the same effect, E.e. glucose limitation at the cellular level might be induced by artifically modified unphysiological D-glucose derivatives which may be expected to act independently of the concentrations-used. D-glucose derivatives used (scheme 1) can be divided into three groups: (I) glycosylamines; (11) D-glucose and methyl-&-D-glucopyranosides; (111) 2-acetamido-2-deoxy-D-glucose and methyl 2-acetamido-2-deoxy-a, 6-D-glucopyranoside derivatives (0-, and N-acetyl), or benzyl-oxycarbonyl derivatives. It should be noted there that carbohydrate derivatives are reasonably stable in aqueous solution a t 28 "C, except aldoses with free hemiacetal groups and glycosylamines which may undergo anomerization, or other covalent conformational changes, especially in contact with biological receptors (e.g. mannan-protein complex of yeast cell wall).The purpose of this report is twofold: (1) to describe physiological and morphological parameters of C. albicans grown on natural and artificially modified D-glucose derivatives; (2) to direct attention to new inducers of yeast-mycelial transition.

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Yeast-mycelial conversion induced by N-acetyl-D-glucosamine in Candida albicans

Cited by 206 publications

References 14 publications

Ethanol-induced Germ Tube Formation in Candida albicans

Ethanol-induced Germ Tube Formation in Candida albicans

Identification of anN-Acetylglucosamine Transporter That Mediates Hyphal Induction inCandida albicans

Growth of Candida albicans on artificial D‐glucose derivatives

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