Figure 6.

ORF19.1725 is involved in cell adhesion to zebrafish embryos. (A) Embryos were co-incubated with 5 × 10⁵ C. albicans cells of P37005 (a, g, m), orf19.1725Δ (b, c, h, i, n, o) and orf19.1725Δ::ORF19.1725 (d, e, j, k, p, q) for 4 hr. The infected embryos were then washed with egg water to remove non-adhered cells. Images were taken by a Leica TCS SP5 II inverted microscope. The images in the middle panel (g, h, i, j, k, l) are focused on the outside of the embryo surface. The images in the bottom panel (m, n, o, p, q, r) are focused on the inner side of the embryo surface. Embryos without infection by C. albicans cells served as negative controls (f, l, r). White arrows indicate hyphae on or in the embryo surfaces. (B) Cell quantitation revealed a significantly lower number of adhesive cells of orf19.1725Δ on zebrafish embryo surfaces than of the wild-type or the complemented strains. Infected embryos were washed twice with 40 ml of egg water to remove non-adhered cells. The embryo eggs were then disrupted by a FastPrep-24 instrument (MP Biomedicals, Illkirch, France) and plated on YPD plates to quantitate the number of adhered cells. Values are the mean ± SD of three experimental replicates, and two technical repeats were performed for each experimental replicate “**” represents P < 0.01.