Transcriptional profiling of two Candida albicans isolates in different growth condition

The study asked the question whether commensalism or pathogenicity of an opportunistic pathogen like Candida albicans, depend on strain specific traits or on the phenotypic and genomic plasticity of the genus as a whole. Transcriptional analysis performed upon different medium conditions (RPMI in presence or absence of FBS) indicated differentially expressed genes involved in adhesion, filamentous growth and biofilm formation. Both genome sequence and gene expression highlighted concordant changes in pathways related to invasiveness and filamentation. These results reflected marked differences in term of morphological features, environment adaptation and survival to phagocytosis. The results indicate that the genetic background of C. albicans may greatly affect its behaviour in terms of in vitro susceptibility to immune effector cells. Based on this approach, a more in depth understanding of fungal genetic makeup is achievable, thus allowing to establish the virulence potential of a given isolate and possibly to predict the outcome of C. albicans infection. Gene expression adaptation of two different C. albicans strains was measured at 1 hr and 24 hr after growth in presence of absence of 10% FBS. Three independent experiments were performed at each time (1 or 24 hours) using different starting material for each experiment.