HAART therapy does not reduce the proteinase and phospholipase secretion by oral Candida albicans isolated from HIV-positive patients

ABSTRACT

Production of exoenzymes, specifically the proteinase and phospholipase, is considered one of the most important of pathogenicity mechanisms of C. albicans, which is crucial for tissue invasion. This study aimed at evaluating the production of these exoenzymes in 50 oral C. albicans isolates from HIV-positive (HIV+) patients treated with highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART), and from 50 control individuals. For testing the production of phospholipase and proteinase, the culture media containing egg yolk and bovine albumin were used, respectively. The results were obtained by measuring the diameter of the colony and divided by the diameter of colony plus the precipitation zone, defined as Pz. Data were statistically analyzed by Student’s t test (5). Statistically significant difference (p = 0.001) was observed between the mean values of Pz for proteinase in isolates from HIV+ patients (Pz = 0.358±0.295) and from control group (Pz = 0.660±0.370). The same results were observed for phospholipase production (Pz = 0.399±0.227 for HIV+ group; Pz =0.635±0.292 control group). Both enzymes were highly produced by C. albicans isolated from HIV+ patients when compared with those secreted by C. albicans obtained from control group, suggesting that HAART did not reduce the secretion of these enzymes by this pathogenic fungus infecting HIV+ patients.