Review Article
Year: 2019 | Month: January | Volume: 9 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 236-239
Biofilm Formation in Candida Infections – A Review
Kavitha M K
Professor & HOD, Dept. Of Medical Microbiology, Co-operative Institute of Health Sciences, Thalassery, Kerala, India.
ABSTRACT
Biofilms are the most common mode of microbial growth in nature and are important in clinical infections, especially due to the high antibiotic resistance associated with them. Fungi most commonly associated with such disease are in the genus Candida, most notably Candida albicans. Non albicans Candida species also are attracting considerable interest because they are known to be important agents of hospital acquired infections. Studies on Biofilms consider them as structures composed of a community of microorganisms belonging to the same or different species. The community formed by the fungus C. albicans is composed of three morphological types, yeasts, pseudohyphae, and hyphae. The advantages of biofilm formation include protection in the environment, resistance to chemical and physical removal, and ability of colonizing and causing infection due to drug resistance and evasion to host immunity. As medical device-associated Candida infections are highly drug resistant and may lead to serious complications, there is a need for continuous surveillance of these infections to initiate preventive and therapeutic measures. Photodynamic antimicrobial chemotherapy is a new development that has been successfully used against C. albicans biofilms. It remains to be seen whether resistance would become a major issue if photodynamic therapy becomes widely adopted. Other promising alternative therapies with different mechanisms of action include phyto therapy, disruptors of extracellular matrix by enzymes, signaling molecules, antimicrobials, combined therapies, and so on. The results from these trials will hopefully be positive and offer new ways to minimize the burden of biofilm infection.
Key words: Biofilm, Candida sp., drug resistance, Photodynamic antimicrobial chemotherapy.