Carbon Catabolite Control in Candida albicans: New Wrinkles in Metabolism

ABSTRACT Most microorganismsmaintain strict control of nutrient assimilation pathways to ensure that they preferentially use compounds that generate the most energy or are most efficiently catabolized. In doing so, they avoid potentially inefficient con-flicts between parallel catabolic andmetabolic pathways. The regulation of carbon source utilization in a wide array of bacterial and fungal species involves both transcriptional and posttranscriptional mechanisms, and while the details can vary signifi-cantly, carbon catabolite control is widely conserved. In many fungi, the posttranslational aspect (carbon catabolite inactivation [CCI]) involves the ubiquitin-mediated degradation of catabolic enzymes for poor carbon sources when a preferred one (glu-cose) becomes available. A recent article presents evidence for a surprising exception to CCI in the fungal pathogen Candida al-bicans, an organism that makes use of gluconeogenic carbon sources during infection (D. Sandai, Z. Yin, L. Selway, D. Stead, J