Enhanced enzymatic activity of Candida species responsible for oral candidiasis in renal transplant recipients.

Renal transplant recipients (RTRs) are regarded to be predisposed to oral candidiasis. This study was undertaken to evaluate the activity of hydrolytic enzymes in strains causing oral candidiasis in RTR. A total of 123 Candida albicans and 10 Candida krusei strains were isolated from 200 RTRs (39 RTRs suffered from symptomatic candidiasis, the remaining patients had no clinical symptoms of infection). All fungi were identified based on routine mycological procedures. Because of a small number of non-albicans strains, only C. albicans isolates were compared for enzymatic activity. The activity of 19 hydrolytic enzymes was assessed by API ZYM(®) test. The usage of mycophenolate mofetil was connected with higher ratio of clinically apparent oral candidiasis compared to immunosuppressive regimens without this drug (74.4% vs. 46.8%, respectively, P < 0.01). Candida albicans from RTRs showed higher enzymatic activity compared with strains from immunocompetent patients. Only two enzymes were found to be more active in C. albicans causing symptomatic candidiasis in RTRs (cystine arylamidase: P = 0.001, and α-fucosidase: P = 0.01) compared with saprophytic strains. Atrophic candidiasis showed higher activity of esterase lipase (C8) and α-mannosidase compared with the pseudomembraneous type. We suggest that the enhanced enzymatic activity is responsible for higher invasiveness of Candida residing in the oral cavity of RTRs.