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J. Bacteriol., Jan 1996, 121-129, Vol 178, No. 1
T Srikantha, A Klapach, WW Lorenz, LK Tsai, LA Laughlin, JA Gorman and DR Soll
The infectious yeast Candida albicans progresses through two developmental
programs which involve differential gene expression, the bud-hypha
transition and high-frequency phenotypic switching. To understand how
differentially expressed genes are regulated in this organism, the
promoters of phase-specific genes must be functionally characterized, and a
bioluminescent reporter system would facilitate such characterization.
However, C. albicans has adopted a nontraditional codon strategy that
involves a tRNA with a CAG anticodon to decode the codon CUG as serine
rather than leucine. Since the luciferase gene of the sea pansy Renilla
reinformis contains no CUGs, we have used it to develop a highly sensitive
bioluminescent reporter system for C. albicans. When fused to the
galactose-inducible promoter of GAL1, luciferase activity is inducible;
when fused to the constitutive EF1 alpha 2 promoter, luciferase activity is
constitutive; and when fused to the promoter of the white-phase-specific
gene WH11 or the opaque-phase-specific gene OP4, luciferase activity is
phase specific. The Renilla luciferase system can, therefore, be used as a
bioluminescent reporter to analyze the strength and developmental
regulation of C. albicans promoters.
Copyright © 1996, American Society for Microbiology
The sea pansy Renilla reniformis luciferase serves as a sensitive bioluminescent reporter for differential gene expression in Candida albicans
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City 52242, USA.
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