Virulence of Candida parapsilosis, Candida orthopsilosis, and Candida metapsilosis in reconstituted human tissue models

Attila Gácser, Wilhelm Schäfer, Jerome S. Nosanchuk, Siegfried Salomon, Joshua D. Nosanchuk

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

109 Scopus citations

Abstract

Candida parapsilosis is an increasingly important human pathogen. To study the interactions of C. parapsilosis with human tissues, we evaluated the effects of the CBS 604 type strain and three different clinical isolates on reconstituted human oral epithelial and epidermal tissues. The newly described species Candida orthopsilosis and Candida metapsilosis were also examined in these models. Microscopy of reconstituted tissues infected with yeast cells revealed severe attenuation, morphological changes and cellular damage. C. orthopsilosis caused damage similar to C. parapsilosis isolates, whereas C. metapsilosis was less virulent. To further quantitate tissue damage, we measured lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) in the culture supernatant. The relative LDH measurements correlated with our histopathological observations. We also examined the effect of the lipase inhibitor Ebelactone B and proteinase inhibitor Pepstatin A, to establish the utility of this model for studying factors of C. parapsilosis virulence. Both Ebelactone B and Pepstatin A reduced the destruction of epidermal and epithelial tissues. Our data show that reconstituted human tissues are extremely useful for modeling host interactions with C. parapsilosis and for studying fungal virulence factors.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1336-1341
Number of pages6
JournalFungal Genetics and Biology
Volume44
Issue number12
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2007

Keywords

  • Candida metapsilosis
  • Candida orthopsilosis
  • Candida parapsilosis
  • Pathogenesis
  • Reconstituted human tissue
  • Virulence

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Microbiology
  • Genetics

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