Background: Introduction of the RNA interference (RNAi) machinery has guided the researchers to discover the function of essential vital or virulence factor genes in the microorganisms such as fungi. In the filamentous fungus Aspergillus nidulans, the gene sidB plays an essential role in septation, conidiation and vegetative hyphal growth. In the present study, we benefited from the RNAi strate...

A total of 706 yeast isolates were evaluated in parallel by the Candida albicans Screen (CAS; Carr-Scarborough Microbiologicals, Inc., Stone Mountain, Ga.) test and the germ tube (GT) test in comparison with the API 20C Yeast Identification System. The CAS and GT tests correctly identified 419 of the 422 isolates of C. albicans (99.3%). Two of the false-negative reactions occurring with the CAS...

A model system to study the involvement of cAMP-mediated regulation of a cellular process such as hyphal morphogenesis was investigated. Impairment of polarized growth was observed when Mucor rouxii sporangiospores were grown in the presence of N(6)-cAMP analogues and of SQ 65,442, a cAMP phosphodiesterase inhibitor. Together with an effect on isodiametric growth, there was increased pigmentati...

One-hundred and thirteen Candida albicans strains isolated from patients infected by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and twenty five from HIV-negative individuals were studied. The C. albicans strains isolated from different sites of the body were tested for germ-tube (GT), phospholipase production and serotype. The results obtained indicate that the serotype A was predominant in all the...

Two modifications that simplify and shorten a method for adsorption of the antibodies against the antigens expressed on both blastospore and germ tube cell wall surfaces (methods 2 and 3) were compared with the original method of adsorption (method 1) to detect anti-Candida albicans germ tube antibodies in 154 serum specimens. Adsorption of the sera by both modified methods resulted in titers v...

This study was done to correlate mitochondrial behaviour with nuclear behaviour and cell division as well as with the germ tube formation in the dimorphic yeast Candida albicans. Three-dimensional reconstruction of electron micrographs of serially sectioned cells of the three strains was used to determined the morphological and quantitative relationships between the structures. The results sugg...

Proline-induced germ-tube formation and cell-cell aggregation in four strains of Candida albicans were completely inhibited when the pH of the medium was 5.0 or lower, whereas morphogenesis induced by N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) was unaffected even at pH 4.5. The pH sensitivity of proline-induced germ-tube formation was not caused by a modulation of proline uptake, which was unchanged over the...