This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowReprints and Permissions
Right arrow Copyright Information
Right arrow Books from ASM Press
Right arrow MicrobeWorld
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Wang, A.
Right arrow Articles by Liu, H.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Wang, A.
Right arrow Articles by Liu, H.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Molecular and Cellular Biology, August 2009, p. 4406-4416, Vol. 29, No. 16
0270-7306/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/MCB.01502-08
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Hyphal Chain Formation in Candida albicans: Cdc28-Hgc1 Phosphorylation of Efg1 Represses Cell Separation Genes{triangledown}

Allen Wang, Prashna Pala Raniga, Shelley Lane, Yang Lu, and Haoping Liu*

Department of Biological Chemistry, University of California, Irvine, California 92697

Received 25 September 2008/ Returned for modification 17 November 2008/ Accepted 26 May 2009

Cell chain formation is a characteristic of filamentous growth in fungi. How it is regulated developmentally in multimorphic fungi is not known. In Candida albicans, degradation of septa during yeast growth is accomplished by enzymes encoded by Ace2 activated genes expressed in G1. We found that phosphorylation of a conserved developmental regulator, Efg1, by the cyclin-dependent kinase Cdc28-Hgc1 (hypha-specific G1 cyclin) downregulates Ace2 target genes during hyphal growth in G1. A strain containing a threonine-to-alanine mutation at a conserved Cdc28 phosphorylation site of Efg1 displays a loss of hypha-specific repression of these genes and impaired cell chain formation, mimicking the hgc1 deletion, whereas a strain containing the threonine to aspartic acid mutation leads to a downregulation of these genes and cell chain formation during yeast growth. Furthermore, the phosphomimic mutation can suppress cell separation defects of hgc1. Efg1 also displays preferential association with Ace2 target gene promoters during hyphal growth. We show that convergent regulation of Ace2 and Efg1 defines the transcriptional program of cell chain formation.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Biological Chemistry, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-1700. Phone: (949) 824-1137. Fax: (949) 824-2688. E-mail: h4liu{at}uci.edu

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 15 June 2009.

Molecular and Cellular Biology, August 2009, p. 4406-4416, Vol. 29, No. 16
0270-7306/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/MCB.01502-08
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.





Copyright © 2009 by the American Society for Microbiology.   For an alternate route to Journals.ASM.org, visit: http://intl-journals.asm.org | More Info»