Specific stress-induced storage of trehalose, glycerol and D-arabitol in response to oxidative and osmotic stress in Candida albicans.

Candida albicans exponential yeast cells are able to face environmental challenges by mounting a rapid and efficient "general stress response". Here we show that one of the main components of this response consists of the intracellular protective accumulation of the non-reducing disaccharide trehalose and two polyols, glycerol and D-arabitol, an accumulation that occurs in a stress-specific dependent manner. Thus, oxidative exposures promoted a marked increase in both trehalose and D-arabitol in the wild type strain, RM-100, whereas the glycerol content remained virtually unaffected with respect to basal levels. In contrast, osmotic challenges induced the significant storage of glycerol acc…