Fig. 6.

Chr 7 trisomy is associated with a fitness advantage for colonization of the GI tract. (A) Competition experiments comparing the relative fitness of evolved (Chr 7 3X) and parental isolates (Chr 7 2X) in the GI SD colonization model. Evolved isolates represent strains that had become trisomic for Chr 7 following passage in the GI SD model. C. albicans cells were recovered from mouse fecal pellets and the relative levels of evolved and parental isolates determined. (B) Trisomic isolates were passaged in vitro to induce loss of the trisomic Chr 7 and resulting isolates were genotyped using KASP. (C) Competition experiments comparing the fitness of GI SD evolved isolates (Chr 7 3X) and in vitro passaged derivatives that were disomic for Chr 7 (2X). Strains were competed in the GI SD colonization model, cells recovered from mouse fecal pellets, and the relative levels of evolved and passaged isolates determined. Error bars represent ±SD; four mice were used for each competition.