Functional Study On Candida Albicans CaGUA1 Gene

Purine nucleotides are involved in many important cellular processes. Guanylic nucleotides are critical for multiple crucial cellular processes such as DNA replication, mRNA transcription, translation and signaling via small GTPases. The Candida albicans CaGUA1 gene (orf19.4813, orf19.12276) has an ORF of 1593 bp, encoding a protein of 530 amino acids and shares 84% identity with ScGUA1 at the amino acids level. Here, we used a classical method called"URA-BLASTER"to construct the mutant deleted for two alleles (gua1â–³/gua1â–³) of CaGUA1, and the mutant can not survive without the supplement of exogenous guanine in the growth medium. We cloned CaGUA1 gene into the vector pCR4, a expression plasmid vector used in C. albicans. We transformed this recombinant clone into the deletion mutant of CaGUA1. The mutant containing pCR4-CaGUA1 can grow without the supplement of exogenous guanine in the growth medium, which indicates that CaGUA1 is en essential gene for the biosynthesis of guanine in C. albicans.