The Candida albicans ORFeome project. (360G-Wellcome-088858_Z_09_Z)

Candida albicans is the major agent of invasive fungal infections and a central model for studying fungal pathogenesis. This proposal aims to develop novel tools for functional genomics of C. albicans. It will generate 3 collections of clones and strains, providing a valuable resource to the international scientific community studying fungal virulence. The resource will set up genome-wide molecular tools and libraries of strains that can be used in an extensive range of applications including th e functional analysis of all the genes of C. albicans. The 3 main objectives are to generate: (1) a complete set of sequence-verified C. albicans genes cloned into an E. coli vector using Gateway technology. This will form the C. albicans ORFeome. (2) a complete set of C. albicans over-expression plasmids with each gene under the control of a strong inducible promoter within a signature-tagged vector enabling integration into the C. albicans chromosome at the RPS1 locus. (3) a library o f signature-tagged C. albicans over-expression strains by transforming each of the vectors generated in (2) into C. albicans. The clones and strains will then be made available to the research community. The company Open Biosystems have agreed to maintain and distribute the collection.