A RETROTRANSPOSON-LIKE ELEMENT TCAl WAS USED FOR TAXONOMIC DETERMINATION OF CANDIDA ALBICANS
逆转座子样元件Tca1用于白色念珠菌的分类鉴定

We had isolated from Candida albicans a moderately repetitive sequence designated alpha and a retrovirus-like transposable element Tcal( Transposon Candida albicans). The Tcal consisted of two 388bp direct repeats of the alpha element, called LTR(Long Ter- mination Repeat), which was separated by approximately 5.5kb of DNA. A large number of strains from America and China have been grouped based on patterns of hybridization bands visualized on Southern blots of EcoR I digested genomic DNA probed with alpha and Tcal element internal sequence. Strains from same area have higher relatedness than those from different area. The hybridization patterns with URA3 and other DNA probes were also conserved within the groups, alpha element are species specific, no hybridization was observed with genomic DNA of other yeast species. The data presented here indicate that the alpha element can be employed to distinguish between species and to assess strain relatedness within C.albicans, we suggest that Tcal may be relevant to the genomic evolutions of C.albicans and the pathogenic potential of the organism.