NIH R01 · 2025
Project Summary Candida albicans is a fungal commensal organism that causes oropharyngeal candidiasis (OPC) and may disseminate systemically in immune compromised people. However, most healthy people have oral levels of C. albicans and it is a beneficial organism in the human gut microbiome. Mice infected with C. albicans also have low numbers of oral fungi but have much higher numbers of C. albicans in the gut so that they are a good model to study what factors permit fungal tolerance at human mucosal sites. C. albicans hyphae secrete the aspartyl protease Sap6 that mediates virulence in OPC, induces cytokine release from oral epithelial cells, and initiates neutrophil recruitment. Oral…
From the public funding record at NIH RePORTER. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.