Trehalose Is an Important Mediator of Cap1p Oxidative Stress Response in Candida albicans

Abstract

Trehalose, a nonreducing disaccharide which accumulates dramatically during stationary phase or under oxidative stress, is well known as a stress protectant in several organisms. Here we investigated the putative correlation of trehalose with Cap1p, which is a basic region-leucine zipper (bZip) transcription factor participating in oxidative stress tolerance in Candida albicans. HPLC-MS analysis showed that trehalose did not accumulate in the cap1/cap1 mutant during stationary phase. When the mutant was exposed to high concentration of H2O2, trehalose accumulation was still not induced. Under both of the conditions above, the cap1/cap1 mutant showed high sensitivity to H2O2, and the cell viability was rather low. Furthermore, when exogenous trehalose was added to the culture of the cap1/cap1 mutant, the tolerance of this strain to oxidative stress was increased. Real time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis revealed that the transcript levels of TPS2 and TPS3 were increased in the wild type strain compared to that in cap1/cap1 mutant when exposed to H2O2. These results indicated that trehalose accumulation is important to the oxidative stress tolerance mediated by Cap1p in C. albicans.