Research progress in the effects of V-ATPases on the physiology and virulence of Candida albicans

Abstract:

Candida albicans is the most common opportunistic fungal pathogen in humans. When the host defense system is compromised, C.albicans can widely invade and grow in the human tissue, causing superficial infections of the skin and mucous membranes and even systemic infections. In recent years, the progress in classic antifungal drugs has been slow due to the serious toxic side effects and increasingly severe drug resistance. The development of antifungal drugs has entered a bottleneck stage, and there is an urgent need to find new antifungal drug targets. The vacuolar proton-translocating ATPases (V-ATPases) of C.albicans are essential for hyphal formation, autophagy induction, and invasion. Inhibiting V-ATPases can greatly reduce the virulence of C.albicans. At present, researchers are exploring the feasibility of using V-ATPases as candidate targets for inhibitingC.albicans infection. This article reviews the research progress in the roles of V-ATPases in C.albicans and the specific inhibitors of V-ATPases.