In Vitro and In Vivo Anti-Candida spp. Activity of Plant-Derived Products

Abstract

Candidiasis therapy, especially for candidiasis caused by Candida non-albicans species, is limited by the relatively reduced number of antifungal drugs and the emergence of antifungal tolerance. This study evaluates the anticandidal activity of 41 plant-derived products against Candida species, in both planktonic and biofilm cells. This study also evaluates the toxicity and the therapeutic action of the most active compounds by using the Caenorhabditis elegans–Candida model. The planktonic cells were cultured with various concentrations of the tested agents. The Cupressus sempervirens, Citrus limon, and Litsea cubeba essential oils as well as gallic acid were the most active anticandidal compounds. Candida cell re-growth after treatment with these agents for 48 h demonstrated that the L. cubeba essential oil and gallic acid displayed fungistatic activity, whereas the C. limon and C. sempervirens essential oils exhibited fungicidal activity. The C. sempervirens essential oil was not toxic and increased the survival of C. elegans worms infected with C. glabrata or C. orthopsilosis. All the plant-derived products assayed at 250 µg/mL affected C. krusei biofilms. The tested plant-derived products proved to be potential therapeutic agents against Candida, especially Candida non-albicans species, and should be considered when developing new anticandidal agents.

Transcriptomic Analysis of Drug-Resistance Acinetobacter baumannii under the Stress Condition Caused by Litsea cubeba L. Essential Oil via RNA Sequencing

“…Studies have shown that LCEO is a cell wall-active agent and can cause cell membrane damage of S. aureus [ 11 ], and our current results were similar. S. aureus is a Gram-positive bacteria and A. baumannii 17 is a Gram-negative bacteria, which again showed that LCEO has spectral antimicrobial activity [ 7 , 53 , 54 , 55 ].…”

Fungal Quorum-Sensing Molecules: A Review of Their Antifungal Effect against Candida Biofilms

“…Based on in vitro and in vivo data, echinocandins and amphotericin B solutions are the most promising combination-based and/or antifungal lock strategies [ 19 ]. Further innovative therapeutic approaches may be the natural products-based treatments [ 22 , 23 ]. One of the more well-studied compounds is carbohydrate-derived fulvic acid as a heat stable colloidal material, which has an inhibitory effect on Candida and bacterial biofilm formation [ 24 ].…”

Caenorhabditis elegans as an Infection Model for Pathogenic Mold and Dimorphic Fungi: Applications and Challenges

“…elegans has been extensively used for studying several dimorphic fungi of clinical relevance. The most devastating and pathogenic dimorphic fungus that has been adequately explored with this nematode model is Candida albicans (Hans et al, 2019a;Hans et al, 2019b;Song et al, 2019;Venkata et al, 2020) and a few other non-albicans species such as C. tropicalis (Brilhante et al, 2016;Feistel et al, 2019;Pedroso et al, 2019), C. krusei (De Aguiar Cordeiro et al, 2018Kunyeit et al, 2019), and C. auris (Eldesouky et al, 2018a;Mohammad et al, 2019). Another important clinical dimorphic fungus, Taloromyces (Penicillium) marneffei, has also been studied in a C. elegans model for both virulence tests and antifungal agent efficacy evaluations (Huang et al, 2014;Sangkanu et al, 2021).…”