Prior study in S. cerevisiae evolving under glucose-limited condition showed that in one evolving population, adaptive mutants from different lineages evolved similar mechanisms of adaptation based on both transcriptional and genotypic analyses (Kao & Sherlock, selleck chemicals 2008). Unfortunately, there exist few studies of time-course samples in C. albicans currently. In C. albicans, studies of in vitro isolates evolved in the presence of fluconazole found different replicate populations reached different fluconazole MIC levels, suggesting a divergence in resistance mechanisms between

different populations (Cowen et al., 2000). Further transcriptome studies of the same series of in vitro evolved isolates demonstrated similarities and divergences in potential resistance mechanisms between different lineages (Cowen et al., 2002); and while evidence seems to suggest that similar resistance mechanisms are present in isolates from the same population, because of the small number of time-course samples analysed, it is not clear whether there is convergence in resistance mechanisms among isolates within the same population.

During the emergence of drug resistance, each mutation that arises represents a step along the fitness landscape. An important question is whether, starting from the same point on the fitness landscape (same genotype), parallel populations will converge in their evolutionary trajectories (whether they will traverse

Etoposide molecular weight Reverse transcriptase similar paths along the fitness landscape). Although no detailed studies exist currently to answer this question definitively, some prior experimental evidence suggests that early steps in the evolutionary trajectory may ‘influence’ the population down certain evolutionary paths. We will discuss some of the evidence here. First, similarities in gene expression profiles between several parallel populations were observed in transcriptome studies of the in vitro evolved populations by Cowen et al. (2002). Specifically, in two parallel populations they analysed, the transient changes in transcriptional expression profiles from time point isolates were very similar (Cowen et al., 2002), suggesting that convergence in evolutionary trajectories may occur. A study with parallel populations of S. cerevisiae subjected to either stepwise increases in or a single high concentration of fluconazole found similar mechanisms arising in independent populations under the same selection scheme (Anderson et al., 2003), suggesting that selection regimen may determine resistance mechanisms involved and that these resistance mechanisms possibly converge in parallel populations in S. cerevisiae. The other evidence comes from more detailed genotypic analysis of the same series of C. albicans isolates by Selmecki et al.