A Saccharomyces cerevisiae mutant with increased virulence

Saccharomyces cerevisiae, bakers' yeast, is not a pathogen in healthy individuals, but is increasingly isolated from immunocompromised patients. The more frequent isolation of S. cerevisiae clinically raises a number of questions concerning the origin, survival, and virulence of this organism in human hosts. Here we compare the virulence of a human isolate, a strain isolated from decaying fruit, and a common laboratory strain in a mouse infection model. We find that the plant isolate is lethal in mice, whereas the laboratory strain is avirulent. A knockout of the SSD1 gene, which alters the composition and cell wall architecture of the yeast cell surface, causes both the clinical and plant isolates to be more virulent in the mouse model of infection. The hypervirulent ssd1Δ/ssd1Δ yeast strain is a more potent elicitor of proinflammatory cytokines from macrophages in vitro. Our data suggest that the increased virulence of the mutant strains is a consequence of unique surface characteristics that overstimulate the proinflammatory response.