Phenotypic characteristics of a slow-growing, nongerminating variant of Candida albicans

Some of the phenotypic characteristics of a slow-growing, nongerminating variant of a commonly studied strain of Candida albicans are described. The variant arose as a chance isolate. The rate of occurrence was about 0 X 1% and the reversion rate was about 1 per 10(6) cells. The colony size was typically smaller than that of the parent and the yeast cells tended not to separate from one another so that catenulate strands of cells (pseudohyphae) were formed. Under standard conditions the generation time of the small-colony variant in liquid shake cultures was about twice that of the parental strain. Growth of the variant was suppressed by antimycin A, indicating that the small colony form was not the consequence of a defect in the cytochrome system. The colony size of the variant was not influenced by chlorobenzotriazole, which suggested that adenine metabolism was not involved in the small-colony phenotype. The pseudohyphal growth pattern was not relieved by high concentrations of utilizable carbohydrates, which means the catenulate microscopic appearance of the yeast cells was not simply an exaggeration of the normal growth pattern of isolates of C. albicans but more probably represented the growth of a cell-cycle mutant defective at the cell separation step. The cytoplasmic proteins of the variant and the parent were very similar though some unique peptides were displayed by each.