Comparative analysis of the filamentous growth regulators EED1 in Candida albicans and MDP1 in Candida dubliniensis

Abstract

Candida albicans, the major fungal pathogen in humans is closely related to Candida dubliniensis. C. dubliniensis is less virulent than C. albicans in all models of infection. Comparative analysis of the C. albicans and C. dubliniensis genomes identified many ORFs whose nucleotide sequence has significantly diverged. One such C. dubliniensis ORF is syntenic with C. albicans IPF946/orf 19.7561. This C. albicans gene had been identified previously as an essential regulator of filamentation (EED1). Following extensive database searches and protein alignments, a syntenic C. dubliniensis gene (Cd36_34980) was identified and also a syntenic EED1 gene was identified in other yeast species. The proteins encoded by both the C. albicans and C dubliniensis genes are similar in length, however they only share 22% identity. Pfam searches of these genes identified a Myb-like DNA binding domain in all these proteins with the exception of EED1p. Following the identification of this Myb-like DNA binding protein in C. dubliniensis, it was decided to refer to Cd36_34980 as MDP1 (Myb domain protein).