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Trehalose accumulation induced during the oxidative stress response is independent of TPS1 mRNA levels in Candida albicans

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Abstract

Growing cells of the Candida albicans trehalose-deficient mutant tps1/tps1 were extremely sensitive to severe oxidative stress exposure (H2O2). However, their viability was not affected after saline stress or heat-shock treatments, being roughly equivalent to that of the parental strain. In wild-type cells, these adverse conditions induced the intracellular accumulation of trehalose together with activation of trehalose-6P synthase, whereas the endogenous trehalose content and the corresponding biosynthetic activity were barely detectable in the tps1/tps1 mutant. The addition of cycloheximide did not prevent the marked induction of trehalose-6P synthase activity. Furthermore, the presence of H2O2 decreased the level of TPS1 mRNA expression. Hence, the conspicuous trehalose accumulation in response to oxidative stress is not induced by increased transcription of TPS1. Our results are consistent with a specific requirement of trehalose in order to withstand a severe oxidative stress in C. albicans, and suggest that trehalose accumulation observed under these conditions is a complex process that most probably involves post-translational modifications of the trehalose synthase complex.

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Acknowledgements

We thank C. Gancedo and J.M. Gancedo (CSIC, Madrid) for their continuous scientific support and J. Winderickx (K.U. Leuven) for his useful comments. This work was partially supported by the research project ALI99–1224-C02–02 from CICYT (Spain) and PB/07/FS/02 from Fundación Séneca (Comunidad de Murcia, Spain). We are also indebted to the financial contract provided by Ingeniería Urbana, S.A. (Grupo Cespa, Spain)

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  1. Óscar Zaragoza

    Present address: Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology, Bronx, New York, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Unidad de Bioquímica y Genética de Levaduras, Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas, CSIC, Madrid, Spain

    Óscar Zaragoza

  2. Area de Microbiología, Universidad de Murcia, Facultad de Biología, Campus de Espinardo, Murcia, Spain

    Pilar González-Párraga, Yolanda Pedreño, Francisco J. Alvarez-Peral & Juan-Carlos Argüelles

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  1. Óscar Zaragoza
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  2. Pilar González-Párraga
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  3. Yolanda Pedreño
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  4. Francisco J. Alvarez-Peral
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  5. Juan-Carlos Argüelles
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Correspondence to Juan-Carlos Argüelles.

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Zaragoza, Ó., González-Párraga, P., Pedreño, Y. et al. Trehalose accumulation induced during the oxidative stress response is independent of TPS1 mRNA levels in Candida albicans . Int Microbiol 6, 121–125 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10123-003-0119-y

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