A number of factors are known to be involved in Candida albicans virulence, although biofilm development on the surfaces of indwelling medical devices is considered to promote superficial or systemic disease. Based on previously reported up-regulation of saccharopine and acetyllysine in biofilm cells and activation of the lysine biosynthesis/degradation pathway, we investigated...

The main scientific purpose of our studies was to verify the hypothesis that homoaconitase (HA) from Candida albicans, an enzyme catalyzing a second step of the α-aminoadipate pathway (AAP) of L-Lys biosynthesis may become a new target for antifungal chemotherapy. Previous studies indicated that the A. fumigatus mutant lacking the functional lysF gene, encoding HA, exhibited attenuated virulence in a low-dose mouse infection model...

A BLAST search of the Candida Genome Database with the Saccharomyces cerevisiae LYS4 sequence known to encode homoaconitase (HA) revealed ORFs 19.3846 and 19.11327. Both alleles of the LYS4 gene were sequentially disrupted in Candida albicans BWP17 cells using PCR-based methodology. The null lys4Δ mutant exhibited lysine auxotrophy in minimal medium but was able to grow in the presence of L-Lys and α-aminoadipate, an intermediate...