Transcriptome Profile of the Vascular Endothelial Cell Response to Candida albicans

We perform microarray analysis of HUVECs upon stimulation with virulent wildtype C. albicans strain SC5314 or its efg1/efg1 cph1/cph1 hyphal-deficient derivative strain CAN34 to compare the gene expression profiles elicited from HUVECs in response to these strains. In addition, these responses are compared to that of TNF-alpha induced responses to determine which responses are Candida-specific. Keywords: comparison of host response to different Candida albicans morphologies HUVECs are co-cultured for 3 or 8 hours in M199 medium alone or with CAN34, SC5314, or TNF-alpha. Total RNA is isolated, cRNA is synthesized and labeled, and labeled cRNA is hybridized onto Affymetrix chips. Each Candida and TNF sample is compared to its corresponding medium alone sample to determine fold changes in expression at each time point.