The role of Lactobacillus species in the control of Candida via biotrophic interactions

Authors:

Isabella Zangl1, Ildiko-Julia Pap2, Christoph Aspöck2 and Christoph Schüller1,3

doi: 10.15698/mic2020.01.702
Volume 7, pp. 1 to 14, published 25/11/2019.

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Affiliations:

1 University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU), Department of Applied Genetics and Cell Biology (DAGZ), Tulln, Austria.

2 University Hospital of St. Pölten, Institute for Hygiene and Microbiology, St Pölten, Austria.

3 Bioactive Microbial Metabolites (BiMM), BOKU, Tulln, Austria.

Keywords: 

Lactobacillus, Candida, interaction, vaginal microbiome, probiotics

Corresponding Author(s):

Christoph Schüller, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU), Department of Applied Genetics and Cell Biology (DAGZ), UFT-Campus Tulln, Konrad-Lorenz-Straße 24, 3430 Tulln, Austria; phone: +43 1 47654 94184; christoph.schueller@boku.ac.at

Conflict of interest statement:

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Please cite this article as:

Isabella Zangl, Ildiko-Julia Pap, Christoph Aspöck and Christoph Schüller (2019). The role of Lactobacillus species in the control of Candida via biotrophic interactions. Microbial Cell 7(1): 1-14. doi: 10.15698/mic2020.01.702

© 2019 Zangl et al. This is an open-access article released under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduc-tion in any medium, provided the original author and source are acknowledged.

Abstract:

Microbial communities have an important role in health and disease. Candida spp. are ubiquitous commensals and sometimes opportunistic fungal pathogens of humans, colonizing mucosal surfaces of the genital, urinary, respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts and the oral cavity. They mainly cause local mucosal infections in immune competent individuals. However, in the case of an ineffective immune defense, Candida infections may become a serious threat. Lactobacillus spp. are part of the human microbiome and are natural competitors of Candida in the vaginal environment. Lactic acid, low pH and other secreted metabolites are environmental signals sensed by fungal species present in the microbiome. This review briefly discusses the ternary interaction between host, Lactobacillus species and Candida with regard to fungal infections and the potential antifungal and fungistatic effect of Lactobacillus species. Our understanding of these interactions is incomplete due to the variability of the involved species and isolates and the complexity of the human host.