Whole Genome-Based Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism Analysis Reveals Genetic Diversity in Candida africana

Date

2017-04-03

Authors

Chowdhary, Anuradha
Hagen, Ferry
Sharma, Cheshta
Al-Hatmi, Abdullah M. S.
Giuffrè, Letterio
Giosa, Domenico
Fan, Shangrong
Badali, Hamid
Felice, Maria Rosa
de Hoog, Sybren

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Frontiers Media

Abstract

This study aimed at investigating the genetic diversity of a panel of Candida africana strains recovered from vaginal samples in different countries. All fungal strains were heterozygous at the mating-type-like locus and belonged to the genotype A of Candida albicans. Moreover, all examined C. africana strains lack N-acetylglucosamine assimilation and sequence analysis of the HXK1 gene showed a distinctive polymorphism that impair the utilization of this amino sugar in this yeast. Multi-locus sequencing of seven housekeeping genes revealed a substantial genetic homogeneity among the strains, except for the CaMPIb, SYA1 and VPS13 loci which contributed significantly to the classification of our set of C. africana strains into six existing diploid sequence types. Amplified fragment length polymorphism fingerprint analysis yielded greater genotypic heterogeneity among the C. africana strains. Overall the data reported here show that in C. africana genetic diversity occurs and the existence of this intriguing group of C. albicans strains with specific phenotypes associated could be useful for future comparative studies in order to better understand the genetics and evolution of this important human pathogen.

Description

Keywords

Candida africana, Candida albicans, genotyping, multi-locus sequence typing, amplified fragment length polymorphisms

Citation

Chowdhary, A., Hagen, F., Sharma, C., Al-Hatmi, A. M. S., Giuffrè, L., Giosa, D., . . . Romeo, O. (2017). Whole Genome-Based Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism Analysis Reveals Genetic Diversity in Candida africana. Frontiers in Microbiology, 8. doi:10.3389/fmicb.2017.00556

Department

Molecular Microbiology and Immunology