A YEAST responsible for thrush can reproduce homosexually 鈥� potentially explaining ways it develops resistance to treatment.
When Candida albicans cells reproduce by mating, they have two sex types, 鈥渁鈥� and 鈥渁lpha鈥�. Richard Bennett of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and his colleagues mixed the two types and saw matings between same-sex cells, but only a few (Nature, ).
They saw many more when they boosted a pheromone secreted by 鈥渁鈥� cells that draws same-sex cells together. They did this by disabling an enzyme in 鈥渁鈥� cells that usually destroys the 鈥渟ame-sex鈥� pheromone.
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Now they want to find out what could make this happen in nature, such as changes in acidity in the mouth, gut or vagina.
In 1999, a lethal strain of a related yeast, Cryptococcus neoformans, emerged on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada, through same-sex mating. 鈥淭he findings suggest that unisex mating may be linked to virulence,鈥� says of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
