Regulation of hyphal formation of the human pathogenic fungus Candida albicans further elucidated

The human pathogenic fungus Candida albicans is the leading cause of invasive Candida infections, which often lead to sepsis. The fungus can grow in different morphologies and changes between yeast stage and filamentous stages (hyphea). This property of the so-called morphological plasticity is crucial for the virulence of the fungus. Scientists of the two Septomics research groups Fungal Septomics (head: Prof. Oliver Kurzai) and Host Fungal Interfaces (head: Dr. Slavena Vylkova) together with teams of the Leibniz-HK have succeeded in further elucidating the regulation of hyphal formation. They showed that the transcription factors Ahr1 and Tup1 play key role in the activation of the virulence-associated genes ALS3 and ECE1 of C. albicans. The results were published in the open access journal mBio.

Original publication:

Ruben S, Garbe E, Mogavero S, Albrecht-Eckardt D, Hellwig D, Häder A, Krüger T, Gerth K, Jacobsen ID, Elshafee O, Brunke S, Hünniger K, Kniemeyer O, Brakhage AA, Morschhäuser J, Hube B, Vylkova S, Kurzai O, Martin R. (2020) Ahr1 and Tup1 contribute to the transcriptional control of virulence-associated genes in Candida albicans. mBio. doi.org/10.1128/mBio.00206-20.