Research
A genetic code alteration generates a proteome of high diversity in the human pathogen Candida albicans
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* Corresponding author: Manuel AS Santos msantos@ua.pt
1 CESAM & Department of Biology, University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal
2 Central Proteomics Facility, Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3RE, UK
Genome Biology 2007, 8:R206 doi:10.1186/gb-2007-8-10-r206
Published: 4 October 2007Abstract
Background
Genetic code alterations have been reported in mitochondrial, prokaryotic, and eukaryotic cytoplasmic translation systems, but their evolution and how organisms cope and survive such dramatic genetic events are not understood.
Results
Here we used an unusual decoding of leucine CUG codons as serine in the main human fungal pathogen Candida albicans to elucidate the global impact of genetic code alterations on the proteome. We show that C. albicans decodes CUG codons ambiguously and tolerates partial reversion of their identity from serine back to leucine on a genome-wide scale.
Conclusion
Such codon ambiguity expands the proteome of this human pathogen exponentially and is used to generate important phenotypic diversity. This study highlights novel features of C. albicans biology and unanticipated roles for codon ambiguity in the evolution of the genetic code.