Occurrence of chromosome rearrangements during the fusion process in the imperfect yeast Candida albicans

Abstract

Auxotrophic derivatives of three strains of the pathogenic yeast Candida albicans of different origins, including 1006 derived from CBS5736, A5153 derived from FC18 and NARA2 derived from NUM961, were used in spheroplast fusion experiments. The DNA content of the prototrophic fusion product obtained following fusion between strains 1006 and A5153 approximated to the sum of those of the parents, but was variable when NARA2 was used as the parent for fusion. Chromosome-sized DNA molecules of the fusion derivatives were separated by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis to examine whether either or both of the chromosome-sized DNA molecules of each parent were transferred into the fusion derivatives. In the fusion derivatives obtained following fusion between strains 1006 and A5153, nearly the full complement of chromosomes was shown to be transferred, but partial transfer of chromosomes occurred in the fusion derivatives that were obtained following fusion between strains NARA2 and A5153. Results indicated that chromosome loss also occurred when these two strains were fused. Variations in the size of R chromosomes, the rDNA-containing chromosomes, were observed in all fusion derivatives tested, indicating high-frequency recombination between R chromosomes during the fusion process.