Bax‐induced cell death in Candida albicans

Bax is a pro‐apoptotic member of the Bcl‐2 family of proteins involved in the regulation of genetically programmed cell death in mammalian cells. It has been shown that heterologous expression of Bax in several yeast species, such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Schizosaccharomyces pombe and Pichia pastoris, also induces cell death. In this study we investigated the effects of Bax expression in the pathogenic yeast Candida albicans. Cell death inducing expression of Bax required a synthetic BAX gene that was codon‐optimized for expression in Candida albicans. Expression of this BAX gene resulted in growth inhibition and cell death. By fusing Bax with the yeast enhanced green fluorescent protein of Aequoria victoria, the cell death‐inducing effect of Bax was increased due to reduced proteolytic degradation of Bax. Using this fusion protein we showed that, upon expression in C. albicans, Bax co‐localizes with the mitochondria. Furthermore, we showed for the first time that expression of Bax in yeast causes the mitochondria, which are normally distributed throughout the cell, to cluster in the perinuclear region. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.