Underlying mechanisms of the effect of minocycline against <em>Candida albicans</em> biofilms

Zou,Li; Mei,Zhao; Guan,Tao; Zhang,Bo; Deng,Qun

doi:10.3892/etm.2021.9857

Underlying mechanisms of the effect of minocycline against Candida albicans biofilms

Authors:
- Li Zou
- Zhao Mei
- Tao Guan
- Bo Zhang
- Qun Deng
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Affiliations: Department of Clinical Laboratory, The People's Hospital of China Three Gorges University, Yichang, Hubei 443000, P.R. China, Department of Pharmacy, The People's Hospital of China Three Gorges University, Yichang, Hubei 443000, P.R. China
Published online on: February 25, 2021 https://doi.org/10.3892/etm.2021.9857
Article Number: 413
Copyright: © Zou et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution License.

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Abstract

Minocycline (MH) is a broad‑spectrum antimicrobial agent and semisynthetic tetracycline derivative, which has been widely used in the clinic due to its efficacy. Having the strongest anti‑microbial effect, MH exceeded the traditional scope of antibiotics and its previously unknown antifungal activity is also gradually being discovered. To preliminarily investigate the inhibitory effect of MH on Candida albicans (C. albicans), changes of cell growth, hyphal formation and transition, biofilm production and signaling pathway gene expression of C. albicans in the presence of MH were assessed in the present study. An XTT reduction assay was performed to quantitatively detect the metabolic activity of biofilms and evaluate the inhibition of MH on this. The results suggested that biofilm formation was clearly inhibited by 67% (P<0.0001) in the presence of 250 µg/ml MH, while mature biofilms were not significantly affected. In addition, MH inhibited the transition from yeast to hypha in a dose‑dependent manner. Furthermore, reverse transcription‑quantitative PCR revealed that several hyphae‑ and adhesion‑specific genes associated with the Ras/cyclic (c)AMP/protein kinase A (PKA) pathway were differentially expressed following MH treatment, including downregulation of ras family GTPase (RAS1), adenylyl cyclase‑associated protein 1 (CAP1), thiamin pyrophosphokinase 1 (TPK1), adenylate cyclase (CDC35), transcription factor (TEC1), agglutinin‑like protein 3 (ALS3) and hyphal wall protein 1 (HWP1) and upregulation of EFG1 (enhanced filamentous growth protein 1 gene) and PDE2 (high‑affinity phosphodiesterase gene). The most obviously changed genes were TPK1, HWP1 and RAS1, downregulated by 0.33‑, 0.48‑ and 0.55‑fold, respectively. It was suggested that MH is associated with alterations in the morphology of C. albicans, such as the repression of hypha and biofilm formation of cells, and MH affected the Ras/cAMP pathway to regulate the expression of cAMP‑associated genes.

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