Expression and Functional Analysis of Candida albicans Cdc37

Abstract: Cdc37 is suggested to act as a molecular chaperone which specifically involved in maturation of protein kinases. A clone containing a CDC37 orthologue was isolated from two hybrid screening with Crk1 kinase domain as a bait. Open reading frame of the gene is 1524bp in length and encodes for a protein of 508 amino acids. The deduced amino acid sequence shares the highest similarity with S. cerevisiae Cdc37 (41% identity). Based on the amino acid sequence similarity， the gene from C. albicans was designated CaCDC37. Northern blot analysis showed that the CaCDC37 was constitutively expressed in C. albicans. Transcriptional level of the CaCDC37 was not regulated in different morphological forms and growth conditions. It is also not affected by deletion or overexpression of the Crk1. Ectopic expression of the CaCDC37 could complement a cdc37 thermosensitive mutant (cdc37-1) of S. cerevisiae indicated that the CaCdc37 has a similar function of the ScCdc37. Yeast two hybrid assay was used to analyse interactions between the CaCdc37 and other two putative chaperons CaHsp90 and CaSti1. The result showed that the CaCdc37 could interact with CaSti1 but not the CaHsp90.
    

CSTR: 32200.14.cjcb.2006.04.0024