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Journal of Bacteriology, March 2000, p. 1515-1522, Vol. 182, No. 6
Department of Botany, University of Toronto,
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada L5L 1C6,1 and
Institute of Microbiology, University Hospital, 1011 Lausanne,
Switzerland2
Received 16 September 1999/Accepted 21 December 1999
Adaptation to inhibitory concentrations of the antifungal agent
fluconazole was monitored in replicated experimental populations founded from a single, drug-sensitive cell of the yeast Candida albicans and reared over 330 generations. The concentration of fluconazole was maintained at twice the MIC in six populations; no
fluconazole was added to another six populations. All six replicate populations grown with fluconazole adapted to the presence of drug as
indicated by an increase in MIC; none of the six populations grown
without fluconazole showed any change in MIC. In all
populations evolved with drug, increased fluconazole resistance was
accompanied by increased resistance to ketoconazole and itraconazole;
these populations contained ergosterol in their cell membranes and were amphotericin sensitive. The increase in fluconazole MIC in the six
populations evolved with drug followed different trajectories, and
these populations achieved different levels of resistance, with
distinct overexpression patterns of four genes involved in azole
resistance: the ATP-binding cassette transporter genes, CDR1 and CDR2; the gene encoding the target
enzyme of the azoles in the ergosterol biosynthetic pathway,
ERG11; and the major facilitator gene, MDR1.
Selective sweeps in these populations were accompanied by additional
genomic changes with no known relationship to drug resistance: loss of
heterozygosity in two of the five marker genes assayed and alterations
in DNA fingerprints and electrophoretic karyotypes. These
results show that chance, in the form of mutations that confer an
adaptive advantage, is a determinant in the evolution of azole
drug resistance in experimental populations of C. albicans.
0021-9193/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Evolution of Drug Resistance in Experimental
Populations of Candida albicans
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of
Botany, University of Toronto at Mississauga, 3359 Mississauga Rd.
North, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada L5L 1C6. Phone: (905) 828-5338. Fax: (905) 828-3792. E-mail:
lcowen{at}credit.erin.utoronto.ca.
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