Candida Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Candida, including details on thrush infections, yeast, diet, treatment, symptoms.

Candida glabrata colonizes but does not often disseminate from the mouse caecum.

Wells CL, Johnson MA, Henry-Stanley MJ, Bendel CM

Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455-0374, USA. wells002@umn.edu

Candida glabrata is the second or third most frequent cause of candidaemia. The gastrointestinal tract is considered to be a major portal of entry for systemic candidiasis, but relatively few studies have investigated the pathogenesis of C. glabrata. Experiments were designed to clarify the ability of C. glabrata to disseminate from the mouse intestinal tract. Following oral inoculation, C. glabrata readily colonized the caeca [approx. 10(7) cells (g caecum)(-1)] of antibiotic-treated mice, but extraintestinal dissemination was not detected. Superimposing several mouse models of trauma and/or immunosuppression known to induce dissemination of Candida albicans and other intestinal microbes did not cause C. glabrata to disseminate often, although one exception was mice given high doses of dexamethasone for 4 days. These data support the hypothesis that the antibiotic-treated mouse intestine may be an epidemiological reservoir for C. glabrata and that this yeast tends to disseminate under specific clinical conditions.

Published 20 April 2007 in J Med Microbiol, 56: 688-93.
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