Abstract
The increasing incidence of fungal infections in immunocompromised individuals has focused attention on the importance of Candida species, particularly Candida albicans as the major opportunistic fungal pathogen. Among several putative virulence factors of C. albicans is an aspartic proteinase produced and excreted by this yeast which has been considered primarily responsible for its pathogenicity. Although this possibility is supported by experimental data reported from several different laboratories, the actual pathogenetic role of C. albicans aspartic proteinase in the development of candidiasis remains unclear. In the course of studies which were attempted to answer this question, we initially undertook the cDNA cloning of this enzyme.
In this paper we report the comparison of the DNA and amino acid sequences among the enzymes secreted by C. albicans including the enzyme cloned by us, C. tropicalis and C. parapsilosis reported previously and describe their functions.
