Selective photoinactivation of Candida albicans in the non-vertebrate host infection model Galleria mellonella

BMC Microbiology

Research Article

Juliana C Junqueira¹  Antonio OC Jorge¹  José Chibebe Junior²  Beth B Fuchs³  Yan Wang⁴  Eleftherios Mylonakis⁵  Xiaojiang Tan⁶  Caetano P Sabino⁷  Michael R Hamblin⁸  George P Tegos⁹ 

[1] Department of Biosciences and Oral Diagnosis, Univ Estadual Paulista/UNESP, 12245000, São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil;Department of Biosciences and Oral Diagnosis, Univ Estadual Paulista/UNESP, 12245000, São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil;Division of Infectious Diseases, Massachusetts General Hospital, 02114, Boston, MA, USA;Department of Restorative Dentistry, Faculty of Pindamonhangaba, 12422970, Pindamonhangaba, SP, Brazil;Division of Infectious Diseases, Massachusetts General Hospital, 02114, Boston, MA, USA;Division of Infectious Diseases, Massachusetts General Hospital, 02114, Boston, MA, USA;School of Pharmacy, Second Military Medical University, 200433, Shanghai, China;Division of Infectious Diseases, Massachusetts General Hospital, 02114, Boston, MA, USA;Warren Alpert Medical School, Brown University/Rhode Island and Miriam Hospitals, 02903, Providence, RI, USA;Huiqiao Department, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, 510515, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China;Division of Infectious Diseases, Massachusetts General Hospital, 02114, Boston, MA, USA;Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, 02114, Boston, MA, USA;Center for Lasers and Applications, Nuclear and Energy Research Institute, 05508000, São Paulo, SP, Brazil;Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, 02114, Boston, MA, USA;Department of Dermatology, Harvard Medical School, 02114, Boston, MA, USA;Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, 02139, Cambridge, MA, USA;Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, 02114, Boston, MA, USA;Department of Pathology and Center for Molecular Discovery, University of New Mexico, 87131, Albuquerque, NM, USA;Department of Dermatology, Harvard Medical School, 02114, Boston, MA, USA;

关键词: Candida albicans;    Photodynamic therapy;    Galleria mellonella;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2180-13-217

 received in 2013-04-18, accepted in 2013-09-17,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundCandida spp. are recognized as a primary agent of severe fungal infection in immunocompromised patients, and are the fourth most common cause of bloodstream infections. Our study explores treatment with photodynamic therapy (PDT) as an innovative antimicrobial technology that employs a nontoxic dye, termed a photosensitizer (PS), followed by irradiation with harmless visible light. After photoactivation, the PS produces either singlet oxygen or other reactive oxygen species (ROS) that primarily react with the pathogen cell wall, promoting permeabilization of the membrane and cell death. The emergence of antifungal-resistant Candida strains has motivated the study of antimicrobial PDT (aPDT) as an alternative treatment of these infections. We employed the invertebrate wax moth Galleria mellonella as an in vivo model to study the effects of aPDT against C. albicans infection. The effects of aPDT combined with conventional antifungal drugs were also evaluated in G. mellonella.ResultsWe verified that methylene blue-mediated aPDT prolonged the survival of C. albicans infected G. mellonella larvae. The fungal burden of G. mellonella hemolymph was reduced after aPDT in infected larvae. A fluconazole-resistant C. albicans strain was used to test the combination of aPDT and fluconazole. Administration of fluconazole either before or after exposing the larvae to aPDT significantly prolonged the survival of the larvae compared to either treatment alone.ConclusionsG. mellonella is a useful in vivo model to evaluate aPDT as a treatment regimen for Candida infections. The data suggests that combined aPDT and antifungal therapy could be an alternative approach to antifungal-resistant Candida strains.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Chibebe Junior et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.