Mcgill University

John Davison

Howard Bussey

Terry Roemer

The invention relates to the identification and disruption of essential fungal specific genes isolated in the yeast pathogennamely CaKRE5, CaALR1, and CaCDC24 and to the use thereof in antifungal diagnosis and as essential antifungal targets in a fungal species for antifungal drug discovery. More specifically, the invention relates to the CaKRE5, CaALR1, and CaCDC24 genes, to their use to screen for antifungal compounds and to the drugs identified by such.

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The present invention provides a novel dominant selectable marker system in yeast that is based on an aminoglycoside, nourseothricin (NST). This compound possesses a powerful antifungal activity against and . The invention provides a cognate drug resistance marker for use in gene transformation and disruption experimentation in and . In particular, the invention presents: 1) direct utility for gene manipulations in both clinically and experimentally relevant strains regardless of genotype and without affecting growth rate, or hyphal formation; and 2) applicability to antifungal drug discovery, including target validation and various forms of drug screening assays.

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Montreal, Canada

John Davison