Transport of purine, pyrimidine bases and nucleosides in Candida albicans, a pathogenic yeast.

Saturable, carrier mediated transport mechanism of adenine, guanine, thymine, uracil, adenosine, inosine, thymidine and uridine has been characterized in Candida albicans cells. Analysis of intracellular contents at short and long time intervals and kinetic data revealed that the uptake of all these bases and their nucleosides is independent of phosphoribosyltransferases and phosphorylases and their metabolic conversion starts only after an initial lag of 1-2 minutes. On the basis of competition experiments, different common and specific transport systems have also been identified.