The isolation of osmotic-remedial conditional lethal mutants of Candida albicans.

We have developed a method for the isolation of a broad range of conditional lethal mutants of the pathogenic fungus Candida albicans. The method substantially alleviates the problems posed by the diploid nature, and the biased mutant spectrum, exhibited by most strains of this organism. We have used the method to isolate 560 temperature-sensitive mutants which grew at 30 degrees C but not at 42 degrees C. We identified amongst them a number of osmotic-remedial strains which, at the restrictive temperature, show phenotypes indicating defects in cell wall biosynthesis.