The yeast Candida albicans is a normal resident of the human digestive tract. It is also the most common fungal pathogen of humans, causing both mucosal and systemic infections, particularly in immune compromised patients. This proposal seeks to understand how C. albicans orchestrates the formation of biofilms - resilient, surface-associated, and organized groups of cells. Biofilm formation is medically relevant because new C. albicans infections are highly correlated with implanted medical devices, which provide efficient substrates for biofilm formation. Our approach to the study of biofilm formation is through dissection of the transcriptional circuitry that controls this process. Our long-term goal s to understand how the individual target genes of the circuit contribute to the key properties of biofilms, how mixed biofilm are formed between C. albicans and certain bacterial species, and how the biofilm transcription network differs among pathogenic species closely related to C. albicans.
C. albicans is the most prevalent fungal pathogen of humans, causing superficial infections in normal humans and life threatening, systemic infections in immune compromised individuals. This proposal seeks to understand how C. albicans forms biofilms, communities of cells particularly resistant to mechanical force and antifungal drugs. C. albicans biofilms formed on implanted medical devices and are a major source of new infections; therefore, understanding biofilms in detail may lead to improvements in preventing and treating C. albicans infections.
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| Lohse, Matthew B; Gulati, Megha; Valle Arevalo, Ashley et al. (2017) Assessment and Optimizations of Candida albicans In Vitro Biofilm Assays. Antimicrob Agents Chemother 61: |
| Winter, Michael B; Salcedo, Eugenia C; Lohse, Matthew B et al. (2016) Global Identification of Biofilm-Specific Proteolysis in Candida albicans. MBio 7: |
| Mancera, Eugenio; Porman, Allison M; Cuomo, Christina A et al. (2015) Finding a Missing Gene: EFG1 Regulates Morphogenesis in Candida tropicalis. G3 (Bethesda) 5:849-56 |
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| Wells, Melissa L; Washington, Onica L; Hicks, Stephanie N et al. (2015) Post-transcriptional regulation of transcript abundance by a conserved member of the tristetraprolin family in Candida albicans. Mol Microbiol 95:1036-53 |
| Fox, Emily P; Bui, Catherine K; Nett, Jeniel E et al. (2015) An expanded regulatory network temporally controls Candida albicans biofilm formation. Mol Microbiol 96:1226-39 |
| Fox, Emily P; Cowley, Elise S; Nobile, Clarissa J et al. (2014) Anaerobic bacteria grow within Candida albicans biofilms and induce biofilm formation in suspension cultures. Curr Biol 24:2411-6 |
| Kavanaugh, Nicole L; Zhang, Angela Q; Nobile, Clarissa J et al. (2014) Mucins suppress virulence traits of Candida albicans. MBio 5:e01911 |
| Nobile, Clarissa J; Fox, Emily P; Hartooni, Nairi et al. (2014) A histone deacetylase complex mediates biofilm dispersal and drug resistance in Candida albicans. MBio 5:e01201-14 |
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