Preparation of Mitochondria from Candida albicans

Based on the methods of (Daum et al., 1982) and (Hewitt et al., 2012), we have established the use of Candida albicans as a new model system to study mitochondrial biogenesis. This dimorphic yeast provides an excellent system to investigate the coordination of mitochondrial biogenesis with other cellular networks including cellular metabolism and the cell cycle. Unlike the model lab yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which has been widely used in the mitochondrial biogenesis field, C. albicans is not subject to the Crabtree effect, hence grows aerobically in glucose when oxygen is present. Therefore the control of mitochondrial biogenesis in C. albicans is more typical of eukaryotic cells. C. albicans has a fully sequenced genome and there are many published tools for genetic manipulation facilitating Systems Biology approaches. The isolation of mitochondria as described in this protocol produces a more simplified system that can be interrogated using the standard tools of molecular biology. In addition the import of radiolabelled proteins as described in the protocol: Candida albicans Mitochondrial Protein Import Assay (Hewitt et al., 2013) is a sensitive technique that can be used to determine details of kinetics and interactions of imported proteins.