Abstract
The fungus Candida albicans and bacterium Staphylococcus aureus can coexist in polymicrobial biofilms. S. aureus attaches strongly to hyphae, but not to the yeast form, of C. albicans with important consequences for virulence. Hyphae-associated S. aureus is less susceptible to antibiotic treatment. Furthermore, co-inoculation of C. albicans and S. aureus causes more severe and widespread infection than either microorganism alone. In this chapter, a basic in vitro model for studying the interaction between C. albicans hyphae and S. aureus is presented, which makes use of a fluorescently labeled S. aureus strain. Furthermore, two protocols are described that allow investigation of the effect of C. albicans and S. aureus interaction on antibiotic susceptibility or on interactions with the host. The latter focuses on phagocytosis of C. albicans-adhered S. aureus by macrophages. The protocols presented here may serve as a starting point to study the interaction of C. albicans with various other bacterial species.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Carolien Bode for practical assistance. Purchase of the Bioflux Z1000 was made possible through a grant from the Division for Earth and Life Sciences (ALW) with financial aid from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). This work funded with financial support of the Dutch Burns Foundation (12.102). BPK is also supported by a grant from the University of Amsterdam for research into the focal point “Oral Infections and Inflammation.”
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Scheres, N., Krom, B.P. (2016). Staphylococcus–Candida Interaction Models: Antibiotic Resistance Testing and Host Interactions. In: Calderone, R., Cihlar, R. (eds) Candida Species. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1356. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3052-4_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3052-4_11
Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-3051-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-3052-4
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