Characterization of glycerophosphodiester transport in the pathogenic yeast, Candida albicans

Phospholipase B‐mediated cleavage of glycerophospholipids produces both intracellular and extracellular glycerophosphodiesters. Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Candida albicans contain genes encoding phospholipases of this type. In S. cerevisiae , a single gene, ScGIT1 , encodes a permease responsible for transporting glycerophosphodiesters, such as glycerophosphoinositol (GroPIns) and glycerophosphocholine (GroPCho) across the cell membrane. In contrast, the C. albicans genome contains four ORFs with a high degree of homology to the ScGIT1. C. albicans transports GroPCho at a rate of roughly 10‐fold greater magnitude as compared to S. cerevisiae . In addition, C. albicans utilizes GroPIns and GroPCho as sole sources of phosphate at the physiologically relevant pH of 7.5. GroPIns transport, but not GroPCho transport is regulated by phosphate in C. albicans . Deletion of CaGIT1 (ORF 19.34) abolishes GroPIns transport activity and the ability to use GroPIns as a phosphate source, but does not affect GroPCho transport.