[9] C. bertholletiae has been shown to be associated with the highest overall mortality compared to Rhizopus species, an outcome independent of the use of antifungal therapy.[20] The increased resistance of C. bertholletiae to PMN in the presence of CAS, posaconazole (POS) or VRC, as compared to R. oryzae and R. microsporus was also demonstrated experimentally. Insufficient PMN-induced hyphal damage of C. bertholletiae could be partially due to an imbalance in the amounts of cytokines produced by PMN, since decreased levels of interleukin-8

SB203580 cell line could reduce PMN influx to the site of injury to sufficiently damage hyphae and sustained production of TNF-α could lead to a chronic inflammatory response of the surrounding microenvironment.[14] Furthermore, the fact that triazoles Stem Cells antagonist or CAS did not improve the antihyphal activity of PMN against these Mucorales could be due to immunomodulatory properties that are exerted by the drugs to PMN or to the organisms in such a way that the overall effect yields an indifferent antifungal effect. On this note, it should be mentioned that, although several studies exist on the immunomodulating properties that AmB formulations, VRC, CAS or micafungin exert on immune cells challenged with A. fumigatus, the second most common invasive mould among immunocompromised

patients, comparative data are still lacking for Mucorales species.[9, 79-81] Mucorales cause disease by invading through airways, gastrointestinal mucosa or skin. Innate immune response has been more understood during the last years that it plays an important

role in host defences against Mucorales. Cytokines and antifungal agents have promising role of interaction against Mucorales. Further advances Bay 11-7085 in understanding host defences and creating better therapeutic interventions are expected to improve outcome of this devastating disease. No conflict of interest. “
“The secretion of hydrolytic enzymes is a fundamental virulence factor of Candida albicans to develop disease. The objective of this study was to characterise the virulence of 148 clinical isolates of C. albicans from oral candidiasis by assessing the expression of phospholipase (PL) and secreted aspartyl proteinase (SAP). Isolates were obtained from healthy subjects (HS) and diabetics (DOC) and non-diabetics with oral candidiasis (NDOC). An aliquot (5 μl) of each cell suspension was inoculated on PL and SAP agar plates and incubated. Enzymes secretion was detected by the formation of an opaque halo around the colonies and enzymatic activity (PZ) was determined by the ratio between colony diameter and colony diameter plus the halo zone. Statistical comparisons were made by a one-way anova followed by Tukey’s post hoc test (α = 0.05). The clinical sources of C. albicans had significant effect (P < 0.001) on the PZ values of both enzymes. For PL, clinical isolates from NDOC and DOC had highest enzymatic activity than those from HS (P < 0.