4:09 PM - 4:26 PM
[US2-02] A new perspective on the biochemical and ecological characteristics of fungi.
- How do they survive in the anaerobic environment of the oral cavity? -
Keywords:Fungi、Candida、Dental caries
In recent years, more fungal species have been identified in the oral cavity, but their functional roles remain unclear. Candida albicans, one of the most common fungal species in the oral cavity, has been reported to be linked to dental caries (Du et al., 2020; Xiao et al., 2018). Although the mechanism is not fully understood yet, many hypotheses have been proposed. For instance, C. albicans was found to induce oral dysbiosis, increasing the abundance of Streptococcus mutans (Du et al., 2020). Moreover, C. albicans was found to cause significant acidification in the presence of saliva supplemented with glucose (Samaranayake et al., 1984). These findings suggest that environmental acidification by C. albicans causes a shift of the microbial constitution (towards cariogenic bacterial composition), as well as a shift in the demineralization/remineralization balance towards the demineralization of teeth surfaces (Takahashi and Nyvad, 2008, 2011). On the other hand, it is well-known that although early colonizers are predominantly aerobic, mature biofilms shift towards facultative/strict anaerobes (Cleaver et al., 2019; Wake et al., 2016). Nonetheless, the majority of literature regarding Candida species has been conducted under aerobic conditions. Therefore, in this study, we chose C. albicans, a fungal species commonly found in the oral cavity and conducted culture experiments under different environmental conditions (aerobic, anaerobic, static, and shaking). As a result, we obtained new findings regarding differences in morphology, growth rate, acidity, and sugar metabolism pathways depending on the culture conditions. In this symposium, we would like to provide unique biochemical and ecological characteristics of C. albicans and discuss how the oral fungi are linked to oral health and disease.