Candida albicans exponential yeast cells are able to face environmental challenges by mounting a rapid and efficient "general stress response". Here we show that one of the main components of this response consists of the intracellular protective accumulation of the non-reducing disaccharide trehalose and two polyols, glycerol and D-arabitol, an accumulation that occurs in a stress-specific dependent manner. Thus, oxidative exposures promoted a marked increase in both trehalose and D-arabitol in the wild type strain, RM-100, whereas the glycerol content remained virtually unaffected with respect to basal levels. In contrast, osmotic challenges induced the significant storage of glycerol accompanied by minor changes, or even a slight drop, in the intracellular content of trehalose and D-arabitol. We examined the hypothetical role in this process of the MAP kinase Hog1, which regulates the protective responses in C albicans against both oxidative and osmotic stress. Interestingly, unlike glycerol synthesis, the stress-induced trehalose accumulation was always Hog1-independent, whereas the ability to synthesize D-arabitol was only partially dependent on a functional Hog1 pathway. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.