%0 Journal Article %A Cormack, Brendan P. %A Bertram, Gwyneth %A Egerton, Mark %A Gow, Neil A. R. %A Falkow, Stanley %A Brown, Alistair J. P. %T Yeast-enhanced green fluorescent protein (yEGFP): a reporter of gene expression in Candida albicans %D 1997 %J Microbiology, %V 143 %N 2 %P 303-311 %@ 1465-2080 %R https://doi.org/10.1099/00221287-143-2-303 %K Saccharomyces cerevisiae %K green fluorescent protein %K Candida albicans. %K enhanced GFP %I Microbiology Society, %X The green fluorescent protein (GFP) of Aequorea victoria has been developed here as a reporter for gene expression and protein localization in Candida albicans. When wild-type (wt) GFP was expressed in C. albicans, it was not possible to detect fluorescence or a translation product for the wt protein. Since this was probably due in part to the presence of the non-canonical CTG serine codon in the Aequorea sequence, this codon was changed to the leucine codon TTG. C. albicans cells expressing this construct contained GFP mRNA but were non-fluorescent and contained no detectable translation product. Hence a codon-optimized GFP gene was constructed in which all of the 239 amino acids are encoded by optimal codons for C albicans. In this gene were also incorporated two previously identified mutations in the chromophore that increase GFP fluorescence. C. albicans cells expressing this yeast-enhanced GFP gene (yEGFP3) are fluorescent and contain GFP protein. yEGFP3 can be used as a versatile reporter of gene expression in C. albicans and Saccharomyces cerevisiae and the optimized GFP described here should have broad applications in these and other fungal species. %U https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/micro/10.1099/00221287-143-2-303