Poster abstracts

Poster number 34 submitted by Caleb Embree

Do allelic differences in Candida albicans Pseudouridine Synthase 4 lead to distinct functions?

Caleb Embree (Department of Biology, Ball State University), Douglas Bernstein (Department of Biology, Ball State University)

Abstract:
The human fungal pathogen Candida albicans genome is diploid and for many genes the A and B alleles have different sequences. Recent technological advances have enabled us to begin to investigate if C. albicans A an B allele products have distinct functions. Pseudouridine synthases modify uridine to pseudouridine in tRNAs, rRNA, snRNA, mRNA, and snoRNAs. C. albicans’ complement of pseudouridine synthases differs significantly from S. cerevisiae, but the functions of the C. albicans pseudouridine synthases have not been investigated. C. albicans pseudouridine synthase 4 (CaPus4) has 13 differences between A and B alleles. In S. cerevisiae, Pus4 modifies uridine to pseudouridine in cytoplasmic and mitochondrial tRNAs at residue 55 and mRNAs. We aim to identify the functions of C. albicans Pus4, and test if A and B alleles have distinct functions.

Keywords: Candida albicans, Pseudouridine, PUS4