Abstract
A critical question among the researchers working on fungal lipid biology is whether the use of an enriched growth medium can affect the lipid composition of a cell and, therefore, contribute to the observed phenotypes. One presumption is that enriched medias, such as YPD (yeast extract, peptone and dextrose), are likely to contain lipids, which may homogenize with the yeast lipids and play a role in masking the actual differences in the observed phenotypes or lead to an altered phenotype altogether. To address this issue, we compared the lipids of Candida albicans, our fungus of interest, grown in YPD or in a defined media such as YNB (yeast nitrogen base). Mass spectrometry-based lipid analyses showed differences in the levels of phospholipids, including phosphatidylinositol, phosphatidylglycerol, lyso-phospholipids; sphingolipids, such as mannosyldiinositolphosphorylceramide; and sterols, such as ergostatetraenol. Significant differences were observed in 70 lipid species between the cells grown in the two media, but the two growth conditions did not affect the morphological characteristics of C. albicans. The lipid profiles of the YNB- and YPD-grown C. albicans cells did vary, but these differences did not influence their response to the majority of the tested agents. Rather, the observed differences could be attributed to the slow growth rate of the Candida cells in YNB compared to YPD. Notably, the altered lipid changes between the two media did impact the susceptibility to some drugs. This data provided evidence that changes in media can lead to certain lipid alterations, which may affect specific pathways but, in general, do not affect the majority of the phenotypic properties of C. albicans. It was determined that either YNB or YPD may be suitable for the growth and lipid analysis of C. albicans, depending upon the experimental requirements, but additional precautions are necessary when correlating the phenotypes with the lipids.
Highlights
IntroductionLipids play a wide range of functions in fungal physiology [1,2,3,4,5]
Over the last few decades, lipids have been at the center of yeast research
This study provides us with a complete picture of the differences in the lipid profiles of C. albicans cells grown in different media conditions and any direct effect that this change may have on the physiological state of these cells
Summary
Lipids play a wide range of functions in fungal physiology [1,2,3,4,5]. Many lipid groups, such as sterols, sphingolipids (SL) and certain phosphoglycerides (PGL), are structurally very different in yeasts compared to mammalian systems [6,7,8,9]. It is the unique features of these lipids that have allowed the development of many therapeutic approaches against human pathogenic fungi [6, 9]. Azoles, which inhibit ergosterol biosynthesis by targeting the lanosterol 14a-demethylase (ERG11p), are a classical example, among many other, of antifungal drugs that target yeast lipids [6]
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