Title : Antagonistic and synergistic effect of the probiotic yeast saccharomyces boulardii on the adhesion of Candida glabrata
Abstract:
Growing resistance of pathogenic yeast Candida glabrata to many classes of antifungal drugs has stimulated efforts to discover new agents to combat a rising number of invasive C. glabrata infections. One promising strategy is the use of probiotic microorganisms, Saccharomyces boulardii among them, have been tested as potential biotherapeutic agents. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the probiotic yeast S. boulardii on the adhesion of C. glabrata at different temperatures, pH values, and in the presence of three important antimycotics, such as fluconazole, itraconazole and amphotericin B. The method used to assess adhesion was crystal violet staining. The selection of antimycotics concentrations used in the adhesion assay was based on minimum inhibitory concentrations obtained by the CLSI, standard M27-A2 method. Our results showed that despite the nonadhesiveness of S. boulardii cells, probiotic yeast significantly suppressed the adhesion of C. glabrata. On the other hand, a slight stimulatory effect was observed in some C. glabrata strains, which highlights the importance of strain specificity and opens up further research interests. When environmental conditions are considered, temperature and pH significantly influenced co-culture adhesion of C. glabrata and S. boulardii. As expected, exposure to various concentrations of amphotericin B significantly reduced the adhesion of C. glabrata strains both in a single culture and co-culture with S. boulardii. Therefore, it can be speculated that S. boulardii could substitute the effect of antimycotics in a range concentrations and with specific type of strains. This would certainly change the view on the treatment of yeast infections in the future.
