Resistance to candidiasis and macrophage activity in chitin-treated mice

Abstract

The effect of chitin, a polysaccharide of the cell wall of Candida albicans, on both the survival of C. albicans infected mice and the activity of the murine peritoneal macrophages has been studied. Pretreatment of mice with 30 mg kg(-1) C. albicans chitin enhanced the survival of the infected animals. The protective effect was concomitant with an enhancement of both phagocytic and candidacidal activities of the peritoneal macrophages. Chitin by itself did not induce the nitric oxide (NO) synthase in the macrophages, which remained at a level similar to that shown by the macrophages from untreated animals. The administration of 10 mg kg(-1) C. albicans chitin diminished the long term survival of the infected animals. This effect was coincident with a lower candidacidal activity and NO production by the macrophages of the chitin treated and infected animals, compared to the untreated infected animals.

Interindividual variation, correlations, and sex-related differences in the salivary biochemistry of young healthy adults

“…Another interesting relationship was the negative correlation between lysozyme activity and chitinase activity ( ρ = −0.46, P < 0.001). These two enzymes have somewhat complementary roles: while lysozyme cleaves bacterial cell walls, chitinase lyses fungal walls and can act against the oral pathogen Candida albicans . The inverse relationship might suggest that these enzymes act together and that the effects of the two are cumulative, whereby a decrease in the level of one could be compensated by a concomitant increased level of the other.…”

The interaction between Histoplasma capsulatum cell wall carbohydrates and host components: relevance in the immunomodulatory role of histoplasmosis

“…It is also possible that chitin has a dual immunomodulatory effect on macrophages by immunosuppressing or activating anti-microbial mechanisms by increasing nitric oxide production, an activity previously described in Candida albicans (Rementeria et al 1997).…”

Surface architecture of Histoplasma capsulatum

“…The cells of the immune system seem to use dectin-1 to recognize Candida albicans (Mora-Montes et al, 2011) through chitin, but in Hc, the role of chitin in the interaction with the components of the immune system is unclear. However, it is possible that chitin functions as an immunomodulatory molecule, immunosuppressing, or activating anti-microbial activities of macrophages and PBMCs, as described in C. albicans (Rementeria et al, 1997; Mora-Montes et al, 2011). Intriguingly, Hc chitin can bind diverse products in supernatant, such as polysaccharides from the capsule of Cryptococcus neoformans or self-proteins like YPS3 (Bohse and Woods, 2005), described later in this essay.…”