Farnesol inhibits translation to limit growth and filamentation in C. albicans and S. cerevisiae
Authors:Nkechi E. Egbe1,2, Tawni O. Dornelles1, Caroline M. Paget1, Lydia M. Castelli1,3 and Mark P. Ashe1
doi: 10.15698/mic2017.09.589
Volume 4, pp. 294 to 304, published 04/09/2017.
1 Division of Molecular and Cellular Function, School of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, The University of Manchester, Manchester Academic Health Science Centre, Michael Smith Building, Oxford Rd., Manchester, M13 9PT, United Kingdom.
2 Current address: Department of Biological Sciences, Nigerian Defence Academy, PMB 2109, Kaduna, Nigeria.
3 Current address: Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S10 2HQ, United Kingdom.
Keywords:
protein synthesis, translation control, farnesol, quorum sensing.
Corresponding Author(s):
Conflict of interest statement:
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Please cite this article as:
Nkechi E. Egbe, Tawni O. Dornelles, Caroline M. Paget, Lydia M. Castelli and Mark P. Ashe (2017). Farnesol inhibits translation to limit growth and filamentation in C. albicans and S. cerevisiae. Microbial Cell 4(9): 294-304. doi: 10.15698/mic2017.09.589
© 2017 Egbe et al. This is an open-access article released under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are acknowledged.
Abstract:
Candida albicans is a polymorphic yeast where the capacity to switch between yeast and filamentous growth is critical for pathogenicity. Farnesol is a quorum-sensing sesquiterpene alcohol that, via regulation of specific signalling and transcription components, inhibits filamentous growth in C. albicans. Here we show that farnesol also inhibits translation at the initiation step in both C. albicans and S. cerevisiae. In contrast to fusel alcohols, that target the eukaryotic initiation factor 2B (eIF2B), farnesol affects the interaction of the mRNA with the small ribosomal subunit leading to reduced levels of the 48S preinitiation ribosomal complex in S. cerevisiae. Therefore, farnesol targets a different step in the translation pathway than fusel alcohols to elicit a completely opposite physiological outcome by negating filamentous growth.