Systematic Analysis of the Lysine Succinylome in Candida albicans

Candida albicans is the most common human fungal pathogen for both immunocompetent and immunocompromised individuals. Lysine succinylation is a frequently occurring post-translational modification that is found in many organisms; however, the role of succinylation is still under investigation. Here, we initiated a first screening of lysine succinylation in C. albicans. We identified 1550 succinylation sites from 389 proteins in C. albicans, demonstrating that succinylation is conservative in this organism. However, the lysine succinylation sites showed some difference in C. albicans, with the overlapping rates between C. albicans and other species ranging from 55% for Saccharomyces cerevisiae, 40% for human, 35% for mouse, and to only 16% for Escherichia coli. The further bioinformatics analysis indicated that the succinylated proteins were involved in a wide range of cellular functions with diverse subcellular localizations. Furthermore, we discovered that lysine succinylation could coexist with phosphorylation and/or acetylation in C. albicans. The KEGG enrichment pathway analysis of these succinylated proteins suggested that succinylation may play an indispensable role in the regulation of the tricarboxylic acid cycle. The bioinformatic data obtained from this study therefore enable the depth-resolved physiological roles of lysine succinylation in C. albicans.