Abstract:Candida glabrata, a common opportunistic fungal pathogen, adheres efficiently to mammalian epithelial cells in culture. This interaction in vitro depends mainly on the adhesin Epa1, one of a large family of cell wall proteins. Most of the EPA genes are located in subtelomeric regions where they are transcriptionally repressed by silencing. In order to better characterize the transcriptional regulation of the EPA family, we have assessed the importance of C. glabrata orthologues of known regulators of subtelomeric silencing in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. To this end, we used a series of strains containing insertions of the reporter URA3 gene within different intergenic regions throughout 4 telomeres of C. glabrata. Using these reporter strains, we have assessed the roles of SIR2, SIR3, SIR4, HDF1 (yKu70), HDF2 (yKu80) and RIF1 in mediating silencing at four C. glabrata telomeres. We found that while the SIR proteins are absolutely required for silencing of the reporter genes and the native subtelomeric EPA genes, Rif1 and the Ku proteins regulate silencing at only a subset of the analyzed telomeres. We also mapped a cis-element adjacent to the EPA3 locus that can silence a reporter gene when placed at a distance of 31 kb from the telomere. Our data show that silencing of the C. glabrata telomeres varies from telomere to telomere. In addition, recruitment of silencing proteins to the sub-telomeres is likely, for certain telomeres, to depend both on the telomeric repeats as well as particular discrete silencing elements.

Status: Published Type: Journal Article PubMed ID: 18836091

• To find other papers on a gene and topic, click on the colored ball in the appropriate box.
  displays other papers with information about that topic for that gene.
  displays other papers in CGD that are associated with that topic.
  The topic is addressed in these papers but does not describe a specific gene or chromosomal feature.


• To go to the Locus page for a gene, click on the gene name.