Candida albicans colonization and dissemination from the murine gastrointestinal tract: the influence of morphology and Th17 immunity |
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| Authors: | Kong Chen Graeme I Murray David Kadosh Alistair J P Brown Neil A R Gow Donna M MacCallum Jay K Kolls Gordon D Brown |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Paediatrics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA;2. Pathology, Division of Applied Medicine, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK;3. Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, USA;4. Aberdeen Fungal Group, University of Aberdeen, Institute of Medical Sciences, Aberdeen, UK |
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| Abstract: | The ability of Candida albicans to cause disease is associated with its capacity to undergo morphological transition between yeast and filamentous forms, but the role of morphology in colonization and dissemination from the gastrointestinal (GI) tract remains poorly defined. To explore this, we made use of wild‐type and morphological mutants of C. albicans in an established model of GI tract colonization, induced following antibiotic treatment of mice. Our data reveal that GI tract colonization favours the yeast form of C. albicans, that there is constitutive low level systemic dissemination in colonized mice that occurs irrespective of fungal morphology, and that colonization is not controlled by Th17 immunity in otherwise immunocompetent animals. These data provide new insights into the mechanisms of pathogenesis and commensalism of C. albicans, and have implications for our understanding of human disease. |
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