Comparative Genomics of Translation Initiation Ortholog Mapping from Candida Albicans to Candida Auris and Saccharomyces Cerevisiae
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Translation initiation is a critical and evolutionarily conserved step in eukaryotic gene expression, but its functional conservation across fungal pathogens remains poorly characterized. In this study, we explore the conservation of translation initiation mechanisms across three fungal species: the well- annotated Candida albicans (SC5314), two genetically distinct clinical strains of Candida auris (B8441 and B11221), and the model yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae (S288C). Using a computational bioinformatics pipeline, we integrate or- thogroup clustering (via OrthoFinder [1]), Gene Ontology (GO)- based annotation, domain prediction, and reciprocal BLAST hit analysis to identify and characterize orthologs involved in translation initiation. The analysis is guided by key GO terms including GO:0006413 (translational initiation), GO:0003743 (initiation factor activity), and others associated with translation complexes. We construct species-wise orthogroup presence matrices and visualize patterns of conservation using heat maps, UpSet plots, and force-directed network diagrams. Our results reveal that several essential translation initiation components—such as eIF1, eIF4E, and DOM34—are strongly conserved across all three species. In contrast, certain factors exhibit lineage- or strain-specific divergence, including variations in domain architecture and gene duplication events. Interestingly, although the two C. auris strains exhibit high genome-wide sim ilarity, orthogroup conservation specific to translation initiation genes shows more selective retention. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of annotation transfer in characterizing functional modules across fungal genomes, highlighting the translational machinery as a conserved and computationally tractable biological system. The pipeline developed here illustrates how genome-scale annotation, homology inference, and functional filtering can be integrated to sup- port hypothesis generation in pathogen genomics. Our findings provide a foundation for future experimental work, including the development of computational pipelines related to ribosome profiling, to validate the regulatory and functional relevance of conserved initiation factors across fungal pathogens.
DOI: 10.46632/daai/5/1/15
Language: English
Subfield: Molecular Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W4413370986