Functions of CRK1 Gene of Candida
albicans as Studied by Gene Knock-out*
WANG Qin, ZHOU Song and CHEN Jiang-Ye
( State Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Shanghai Institute of
Biochemistry, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China
)
Abstract In the course of screening
MAPK related protein kinase genes from Candida albicans DNA library, a
CRK1 (CDC2-related protein kinase) gene was identified. Deletion of
the CRK1 gene significantly decreased the growth. rate of cells. CRK1
knock out strains precipitated more rapidly in YPD liquid medium. The CRK1
null mutant stimulated hyphae formation in Lee’s liquid medium at pH 4.5 and 25
℃, which is the medium that maintains the wild type Candida albicans
strain in yeast form. These phenomena suggest that CRK1 gene may be
involved in cell cycle, flocculation and morphogenesis of Candida albicans.
Overexpression of the half length CRK1 gene could induce the invasive
growth into agar faintly, the cells that was capable of the invasive growth
also changed their cell shapes to long, thin pseudohyphal-like cells, but the
full-length CRK1 had only weak effect. The Crk1p might promote the
invasive growth or cell elongation through a route different from the MAPK
signal transduction pathway.
Key Words Candida albicans； CRK1 gene； flocculation； morphogenesis
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