Ropars, JeanneMarcet Houben, MarinaGabaldón Estevan, Juan Antonio, 1973-d'Enfert, Christophe2019-11-252019-11-252018Ropars J, Maufrais C, Diogo D, Marcet-Houben M, Perin A, Sertour N et al. Gene flow contributes to diversification of the major fungal pathogen Candida albicans. Nat Commun. 2018;9(1):2253. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-04787-42041-1723http://hdl.handle.net/10230/42956Elucidating population structure and levels of genetic diversity and recombination is necessary to understand the evolution and adaptation of species. Candida albicans is the second most frequent agent of human fungal infections worldwide, causing high-mortality rates. Here we present the genomic sequences of 182 C. albicans isolates collected worldwide, including commensal isolates, as well as ones responsible for superficial and invasive infections, constituting the largest dataset to date for this major fungal pathogen. Although, C. albicans shows a predominantly clonal population structure, we find evidence of gene flow between previously known and newly identified genetic clusters, supporting the occurrence of (para)sexuality in nature. A highly clonal lineage, which experimentally shows reduced fitness, has undergone pseudogenization in genes required for virulence and morphogenesis, which may explain its niche restriction. Candida albicans thus takes advantage of both clonality and gene flow to diversify.application/pdfeng© The Author(s) 2018. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-04787-4Microbial geneticsPathogensPopulation geneticsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess