Candida Infection
What is Candida?
Candida is a fungus, a member of the yeast family and the most common cause of fungal infections. Only tiny bits should live in the mouth and intestines, to assist in the digestion and absorption of nutrients.
Fungi appear as mushrooms, truffles, molds, a leavening agent for bread, as fermentation of food products, and are used to produce antibiotics. Fungi are separate from bacteria as their cell walls contain a chitin cover.
They interact with plants, animals, parasites, and other fungi. Recently, various enzymes produced by fungi are used industrially, in detergents, and as biological pesticides to control weeds, plant diseases, insect pests.
Fungi feed on dissolved molecules by secreting digestive enzymes. Growth is their means of mobility. Fungi are the principal decomposers in ecological systems.
Candida Albicans: Your Dark Doppelganger
Fungi break down manufactured materials and buildings. They become significant pathogens of humans and other animals, because they produce bioactive toxic compounds. Some of the 5 Million species contain psychotropic compounds that are consumed recreationally or in ceremonies.
Candida is the most common cause of fungal infections. Many species are harmless. However, when mucosal barriers are disrupted or the immune system is compromised, they will overgrow, invade and cause many debilitating diseases.
Candida albicans (Lat: ‘sweet & whitish’) is a diploid fungus. Candida grown in labs appears as large, round, white colonies with a yeasty odor. The C-albicans ferments glucose & maltose to acid & gas, sucrose to acid, but does not ferment lactose.
DNA Translation
Many species of Candida use a non-standard genetic code in the translation of their nuclear genes into the amino acid sequences. The difference in the genetic code is that the codon CUG (normally encoding the amino acid leucine) is translated as amino acid, serine.
The alternative translation of the CUG codon in these species is due to a novel nucleic acid sequence in the serine-tRNA (ser-tRNA-CAG), glutamine, which has a guanosine located at position 33, 5′ to the anticodon.
Glutamine is the most abundant naturally occurring, non-essential amino acid in our body, and one of the few amino acids that can cross the blood–brain barrier.
In all other tRNAs, this position is normally occupied by a pyrimidine (often uridine). This genetic code change is the only such known alteration in cytoplasmic mRNA, in both the prokaryotes, and the eukaryotes, whereby a sense codon is reassigned.
This novel genetic coding appears to be a mechanism for very rapid adaptation to the organism’s environment, as well as playing an important role in the evolution of the genus Candida by creating new species.
