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Abstract

The yeast Candida albicans has the ability to induce several systematic and superficial diseases in the immunocompromised or immunosuppressed host. Statins are widely used drugs for the control of cholesterol biosynthesis in the body and are therefore used in treatment of hypercholesterolemia. There is increasing evidence for the potential use of statins in preventing and treating fungal infections. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of statins on C. albicans and to characterize the proteomic alterations occurring in C. albicans in response to statin. Pre-growth of C. albicans in the presence of statin lead to lower levels of ergosterol, reduced adherence to buccal epithelial cells and decreased virulence in Galleria mellonella larvae. Cells also showed increased permeability as measured by elevated amino acid and protein leakage. Proteomic analysis of C. albicans exposed to statin revealed differential abundance of proteins related to ergosterol biosynthesis such as squalene monooxygenase (4.52 fold increase), and lanosterol synthase (2.84 fold increase). Proteins involved in oxidative stress response such as small heat shock protein 21 (6.33 fold decrease) and glutathione peroxidase (2.05 fold decrease) and adherence related proteins such as yeast-form wall protein 1 (6.26 fold decrease) and Ecm33p protein (2.06 fold decrease) were also altered in abundance. These results indicate that statins have the ability to reduce the growth of C. albicans and induce an oxidative stress response. Statins may have potential to control fungal infections in vivo if used alone or in combination with conventional antifungal agents.

  • This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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/content/journal/acmi/10.1099/acmi.ac2019.po0198
2019-04-08
2024-12-08
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