COMPARISON OF INO1 GENE-SEQUENCES AND PRODUCTS IN CANDIDA-ALBICANS AND SACCHAROMYCES-CEREVISIAE

The sequence of the Candida albicans inositol biosynthetic gene, CaINO 1, and its flanking regions is determined in this study. The largest o pen reading frame has a coding sequence of 1560 base pairs, correspond ing to a predicted protein of 521 amino acids. Three primary transcrip tional start sites are found 64, 57 and 52 base pairs upstream of the ATG translational start site at position 1374. Five stop codons exist in a cluster at the end of the coding region. Within the upstream regi on TATA and CAAT eukaryotic regulatory sequences are identified along with regions corresponding to a 10 base pair inositol/choline responsi ve element consensus sequence. Computer analysis of the DNA sequence s hows strong homology to the Saccharomyces cerevisiae INO1 gene. A comp arison of the deduced amino acid sequence of the C. albicans INO1 gene product, inositol-1-phosphate synthase, with its homolog in S. cerevi siae shows 64% identity and 77% similarity. The differences between th e two proteins are most prominent in the N-tenminal regions. The seque nce has been deposited in the GenBanK/EMBL data library under Accessio n Number L22737.