Robust extracellular pH modulation by Candida albicans during growth in carboxylic acids

Purpose: Candida albicans avidly uses multiple carbon sources that are less preferred by related species. This project compared transcriptional profiles of cells growing in media containing these nutrients relative to glucose Methods: C. albicans strain SC5314 was incubated in minimal YNB media containing 2% glucose, casamino acids, glutamate or a-ketoglutarate for five hours. RNA was prepared and subjected to deep sequencing. Results: Substantial overlap was seen in the transcriptional changes in all alternative carbon sources relative to the glucose control. Source-specific changes reflected the unique metabolism of each nutrient. Conclusions: C. albicans is well-adapted to use a range of nutrients that can be found in the mammalian host and has a common transcriptional response to limiting carbon environments. Overall design: Cells were grown in the indicated nutrient conditions for ~5 hours before Illumina deep sequencing. Duplicate samples were processed and the read number (100 bp, paired end) for any replicate ranged from 39-48 million.