Browsing by Author "Chen, Yin-Zhi"

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Fruits as the vehicle of drug resistant pathogenic yeasts
(2017-09-01)
Lo, Hsiu-Jung
;
Tsai, Sheng-Hua
;
Chu, Wen-Li
;
Chen, Yin-Zhi
;
Zhou, Zi-Li
Objective: We investigated the diversity and drug susceptibility of pathogenic yeasts on fruit surfaces. Method: Fruits were purchased from supermarkets and washed with buffer. The pellets were re-suspended in medium after centrifugation. The cell suspensions were plated onto CHROMagar Candida medium. Yeasts were identified by ribosomal DNA sequencing and their drug susceptibilities were determined by broth microdilution assay. Results: Of 184 isolates, comprised of 55 species, from 22 different types of fruits, 29 species, including Candida famata, Candida fermentati, Candida guilliermondii, Candida intermedia, Candida krusei, Candida orthopsilosis, Candida parapsilosis, Candida pelliculosa, Candida tropicalis, and others have been reported to cause diseases in humans. In addition to C. krusei, intrinsically resistant to fluconazole, all Rhodotorula and Rhodosporidium species were resistant to fluconazole. One each of C. tropicalis isolate was belonged to diploid sequence type (DST)149 and DST225, genotypes also detected in isolates from humans. Furthermore, the DST225 isolate was less susceptible to azole drugs. The susceptibilities to azole drugs for clinical and agricultural usage were associated to each other. Conclusion: It is important to be aware of the existence of pathogenic yeasts, especially drug-resistant ones, on the fruit surfaces, a potential route for pathogenic yeasts to be transmitted to humans. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The British Infection Association.
Zebrafish Egg Infection Model for Studying Candida albicans Adhesion Factors
(2015-11-16)
Chen, Yin-Zhi
;
Yang, Yun-Liang
;
Chu, Wen-Li
;
You, May-Su
;
Lo, Hsiu-Jung
Disseminated candidiasis is associated with 30-40% mortality in severely immunocompromised patients. Among the causal agents, Candida albicans is the dominant one. Various animal models have been developed for investigating gene functions in C. albicans. Zebrafish injection models have increasingly been applied in elucidating C. albicans pathogenesis because of the conserved immunity, prolific fecundity of the zebrafish and the low costs of care systems. In this study, we established a simple, noninvasive zebrafish egg bath infection model, defined its optimal conditions, and evaluated the model with various C. albicans mutant strains. The deletion of SAP6 did not have significant effect on the virulence. By contrast, the deletion of BCR1, CPH1, EFG1, or TEC1 significantly reduced the virulence under current conditions. Furthermore, all embryos survived when co-incubated with bcr1/bcr1, cph1/cph1 efg1/efg1, efg1/efg1, or tec1/tec1 mutant cells. The results indicated that our novel zebrafish model is time-saving and cost effective.