Effects of growth temperature and caffeine on genetic responses of Candida albicans to ethyl methanesulfonate, nitrous acid and ultraviolet radiation

Modification of responses of Candida albicans to cisplatin by membrane damaging antimycotic agents

The genotoxic, antineoplastic platinum coordination complex, cisplatin (cis-diamminedichloroplatinum (II], exists as a positively charged aquated complex in water solution and as a neutral, nonaquated complex in saline solution. Candida albicans exhibited greater susceptibilities to cellular inactivation and induction of mitotic recombination when treated with the aquated rather than the nonaquated drug. The differential in responses was expressed by cells grown after treatment at 37 degrees C or at 25 degrees C, a temperature which promotes recovery from DNA damages by the yeast generally. Studies with protoplasts established that cell wall components do not influence cellular reactions to either form of the drug. However, membrane damaging antimycotic agents markedly affected responses. Pretreatments with fungistatic ketoconazole or with miconazole, under fungistatic or fungicidal conditions, enhanced cellular resistance to inactivation by aquated cisplatin: the effect was more pronounced with post-cisplatin growth at 25 degrees C than 37 degrees C. Fungicidal pretreatments with amphotericin B or miconazole greatly increased susceptibilities of surviving cells to the lethal and recombinagenic effects of nonaquated cisplatin with post-cisplatin recovery at 25 degrees C or 37 degrees C. Possible mechanisms underlying these responses and their implications for stability of C. albicans populations in cancer patients undergoing therapy with cisplatin are discussed.

Recombinagenicity of caffeine for Candida albicans

Caffeine at concentrations of 0.5 x 10(-2) M or higher inhibited cell replication and induced gene segregations in Candida albicans cultured on defined complete medium. Both responses increased incrementally with increasing caffeine concentrations, and were more severe during incubation at 37 degrees C than 25 degrees C; at 37 degrees C, caffeine levels above 1.5 x 10(-2) M caused cellular inactivation. Caffeine effects occurred only under conditions permitting cell growth, and their magnitudes were greater for unbudded than budding cells, were influenced by cellular genetic backgrounds, and were unaffected by the presence of adenine in the medium. Evaluations of segregations for recessive auxotrophic markers of a four member linkage group carried heterozygously in a cis arrangement in treated cells established that induced segregants arise through either reciprocal or nonreciprocal recombinations. The frequency distributions of classes of reciprocal and nonreciprocal recombinants for these markers conformed with those previously obtained following induction by ultraviolet radiation, indicating that the probabilities of recombinational events within the chromosomal regions defined by the markers are not biased by the differences in kinds of initial DNA lesions caused by the two recombinagens. A panel of four protoplast fusion hybrids considered deficient for DNA repair because of enhanced susceptibilities to UV induced cellular inactivation and mitotic recombination exhibited corresponding increased sensitivities to caffeine, signifying that DNA damage induced by caffeine is subject to repair. Caffeine did not affect behavior of a variant strain exhibiting high frequency phenotypic switching between minute smooth and large rough colonial forms, and no evidence for mutagenicity of the drug was obtained with systems for detection of forward or reverse mutations. The mechanism of caffeine's recombinagenicity, and the implications of that property for genetic studies of C. albicans are discussed.

Factors that influence formation of sister chromatid exchanges in human blood lymphocytes

Sister chromatid exchange (SCE) reflects an interchange of DNA sequences between helices in a replicating chromosome. This was initially accomplished by Taylor and colleagues (1957) using tritiated thymidine incorporation followed by autoradiography. The development of an elegant technique for differential staining of sister chromatids by incorporating a thymidine analog, 5-bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) has greatly simplified the detection of SCEs in metaphase chromosomes. In recent years, the analysis of SCE has been considered to be a highly sensitive and additional (i.e., with chromosome aberrations) end point for measuring mutagenic/carcinogenic potential of various environmental agents and is increasingly being used to detect and differentiate among chromosome fragility human diseases that predispose to neoplasia. Attention has been focused to see if the induction of SCEs in lymphocyte cultures can be used as a reliable "biological dosimeter" for genetic risk assessment and to monitor the exposed populations. Several physical or preparatory as well as biological factors that modify the response and formation of SCEs make the monitoring difficult. The purpose of this article is to review and analyze these factors to facilitate an effective development of a standard protocol for SCE testing and for appropriate evaluation of test results. This may also provide clues to understand the yet unknown molecular mechanism(s) and biological significance of SCE formation.

Effect of temperature variation on sister-chromatid exchange and cell-cycle duration in cultured human lymphocytes

The relation of temperature variation and cell-cycle duration and their influence on SCE frequencies in human peripheral blood lymphocytes was studied. The results indicate that the frequency of SCEs is affected by variation in temperature. Either increase or decrease in the incubation temperature of cells leads to a higher frequency of SCEs than in control cultures grown at 37 degrees C. With a decrease in temperature to 35 degrees C the increase in SCE is accompanied by prolonged cell cycle. No significant difference in cell cycle was observed with the increase of temperature to 39 degrees C.

Differentiation of Candida stellatoidea from C. albicans and C. tropicalis by temperature-dependent growth responses on defined media

C. stellatoidea differs from both C. albicans and C. tropicalis in its i) much greater growth differential on minimal and amino acid enriched media and ii) unique inability to grow on minimal medium containing glycerol as carbon source at 37C. The relative responses to amino acid enrichment occur on media containing either fermentative or oxidative carbon sources, at 25C or 37C. Under any given conditions of carbon source and temperature, different assortments of individual amino acids are stimulatory for each of the three species. All assortments include one or more members of the glutamic acid family. However, sulfur amino acids stimulate only C. stellatoidea on all three carbon sources. On minimal-glycerol medium, wild type strains of C. stellatoidea grow prototrophically at 25C but are auxotrophic for amino acids at 37C; the particular auxotrophies expressed vary from strain to strain. Slow growing, mycelial mutants, prototrophic on glycerol at 37C arise spontaneously in wild type strains at frequencies indicating nuclear gene mutation. Such mutants can be induced by both transition and frame shift mutagens. The implications of these observations for the taxonomic relationships between the three Candida species and for identification of C. stellatoidea in particular are discussed.

Effects of temperature on sister chromatid exchanges

The influence of temperature on sister chromatid exchanges was investigated, and the results are discussed in connection with factors possible involved in temperature-induced SCE-formation. Whereas the SCE frequency increased with increasing growth temperature in a cell line of Xenopus laevis (EAX), which permits the examination of great temperature differences, a Chinese hamster cell line (V-79) revealed a U-shaped temperature-response curve. In addition, it was found that cold treatment at 4 degrees C caused an induction of SCEs in the V-79 cell line. Different BrdU concentrations had no effect on the temperature-induced SCE frequencies and mitomycin C led to an induction of SCEs parallel to the base-line values at different temperatures.

Nalidixic acid inhibition of post-ultraviolet recovery by nalidixic acid sensitive and resistant strains of Candida albicans

Nalidixic acid (Nal) can kill Candida albicans directly or suppress the organism's recovery from ultraviolet irradiation. Mutants selected for resistance to inactivation by Nal alone have generally enhanced DNA repair proficiencies evidenced by their coincident increased resistances to ultraviolet radiation, ethylmethane sulfonate, and nitrous acid. The effects of Nal, erythromycin, and inhibitors of oxidative phosphorylation on survivals of mutant and wild type strains following ultraviolet exposure indicate that different mechanisms underly the direct lethality of Nal and its ability to inhibit post-irradiation recovery.