Strain variation in Candida albicans glycolytic regulation

Carbon assimilation is vital for proliferation of the pathogen and commensal Candida albicans in a range of host environments. Glycolytic genes are activated by two partially redundant transcription factors, Gal4 and Tye7, as established by studies in the background of reference strain SC5314. Recent work indicates that regulatory relationships can vary considerably among C. albicans isolates. Here we analyzed Tye7- and Gal4-related phenotypes in five diverse clinical isolates of C. albicans. We conducted a basic phenotypic analysis and focused NanoString profiling of tye7dd, gal4dd, and gal4dd tye7dd mutants among the five strains. To achieve a global view of the Tye7/Gal4 regulatory network, we conducted RNA-seq analysis of the tye7dd, gal4dd, and gal4dd tye7dd mutants generated from two strain backgrounds, SC5314 and P87. Strain P87 is an outlier with respect to tye7dd gene expression impact, while SC5314 is an outlier with respect to gal4dd gene expression impact. Our results indicate that even a central metabolic regulatory network is subject to strain variation.