CHARACTERIZATION OF EFFECTS OF SILVER NANOPARTICLES ON HYPHAL MORPHOGENESIS IN AN OPPORTUNISTIC FUNGAL PATHOGEN CANDIDA ALBICANS

Abstract

Candida albicans, the polymorphic fungus, is a member of the normal human microbiome and a harmless commensal organism which emerged as major human pathogen and is able to cause life threatening diseases in immunocompromised persons. Several factors have been identified which contributes the pathogenic prospective to fungus including molecules mediate adhesion to invasion into host cells, phenotypic switching, transition from yeast to hyphal, contact sensing, thigmotropism and formation of biofilm. Their treatment is restricted due to appearance of multi drug resistance (MDR), emergence of drug resistance strains, high toxicity of drug and narrow range of the accessible drugs. In the effort to launch newer therapeutic strategies to setback MDR need to find novel determinants of drug resistance in Candida albicans. The antifungal drugs present nowadays are very few which is being used clinically. These are the reasons which restrict the clinician’s therapeutic choices to the fungal pathogen Candida albicans. Silver has been recognized as a nontoxic, safe inorganic antifungal agent with various properties used for centuries. Silver demonstrates a very high potential in a wide range of biological applications, more particularly in the form of nanoparticles. In this study we are synthesizing the silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) by chemical reduction method and characterizing the effects of AgNPs on hyphal morphogenesis in Candida albicans.