Antibiotic Suceptibility Studies and Protein Degradation by Fungi Growing in Aerobic and Anaerobic Conditions

Abstract

Fusarium species cause a broad spectrum of infections including superficial infections in healthy people or disseminated infections in immunocompromised patients. Many of these infections have been associated with proteases secreted by fungi to degrade keratin, an important component of the skin and other tissues. Ischemia and abscess are complications associated to the lack of oxygen in severe mycosis caused by Fusarium. However studies of protein degradation by fungi have been done only in aerobic condition. In this study we hypothesized that protease production would be greater in anaerobic than in aerobic condition. 14 Fusarium isolated from environmental samples were grown in Gelatin Media enriched with sodium nitrate to compare their ability to degrade proteins in anaerobic vs. aerobic conditions. Also antibiotic susceptibility was tested using Fluconazole, Itraconazole and Myconazole in aerobic and anaerobic conditions. All fungi tested showed higher Hydrolysis Capacity Index under anaerobic conditions. In aerobic conditions almost all the fungi tested showed similar colony sizes and halo of protein degradation. On other hand, under anaerobic conditions smallest colony sizes exhibited greater halos of protein degradation. Similarly, all fungi tested were more susceptible to antibiotics in anaerobic conditions too. This study showed high protein degradation in anaerobic conditions. Usually fungal contribution to degradation is ignored due to their low presence in environmental or clinical samples under anaerobic conditions. Our results suggest that Fusarium population could have a role or an impact in anaerobic environments such as ischemia or abscess where protein degradation takes place. Future works includes identification of proteins secreted under anaerobic conditions.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.