Abstract
Nail fungal infection is often mistakenly considered a minor issue or a purely esthetic problem that is not worth solving. However, onychomycosis has been demonstrated to have a negative impact on a patient’s social life. Therefore, given the poor efficacy of various therapy types, there is strong interest in exploring new methods for evaluating antifungal treatments. As such, the aim of this work was to develop a new protocol, using bovine hoof membranes as a model of the human nail to evaluate the capability of a product claiming to prevent fungal adhesion, which is the first step of the infection. In this work, two specific and representative fungal strains, Trichophyton rubrum and Candida albicans, were used. In order to evaluate the possible protective activity of a product against fungal contamination of the nail plate, it was first necessary to test the affinity of the hoof membranes to be contaminated by the fungi. Then, a pharmaceutical product and a base coat were tested as a positive and negative control, respectively, by introducing the membranes (anti-fungal, basic or no treatment and single vs. multiple treatments) into the fungal suspensions for three different contact times (15 min, 5 h and 24 h). The results showed that the more significant antiadhesive effect (AE) was obtained against Trichophyton rubrum than against Candida albicans. Furthermore, taking into account the results obtained at all testing times, 5 h appeared to be the best time for testing the antiadhesive activity. The results obtained after three treatments with drugs and on washed membranes, in comparison to one single application of antifungal product (AP), demonstrated clearly that the drug was able to penetrate deeper into the membranes to exert itself, even after washing and also after only 15 min of contact. Thus, hoof membrane has been shown to be a valuable in vitro model for this kind of product assessment.
Highlights
Fungi are present in the air, soil, plants and water
The results showed that the more significant antiadhesive effect (AE) was obtained against Trichophyton rubrum than against Candida albicans
Hoof membranes were shown to be a valuable in vitro model to consider for this kind of product assessment
Summary
Fungi are present in the air, soil, plants and water. There are approximately 1.5–5.0 million different species of fungi on Earth, some of which cohabitate with humans, but only a few hundred of them may induce diseases. Fungal infections are ignored by social and political communities, but they affect more than a billion people; they cause approximately 11.5 million life-threatening infections and more than 1.5 million deaths annually [1]. Fungal infections can be mainly associated with two types of microorganisms: molds and yeasts. Dermatophyte infections are broadly present among fungal diseases all over the world [2]. They are filamentous fungi predisposed to infect keratin-rich tissues and contain three genera: Trichophyton spp., Microsporum spp. and Epidermophython spp. Dermatophytes can be subdivided into three groups based on the source of infection: the anthropophilic group, where infection is transmitted from one human to another through the direct contact; the zoophilic group, where transfer occurs from animals to humans or other animals; and the geophilic group, consisting of dermatophytes transmitted to humans after contact with contaminated soil [2]
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