Abstract
Oral candidiasis is a very common oral condition among susceptible individuals, with the main causative organism being the fungus Candida albicans. Current drug delivery systems to the oral mucosa are often ineffective because of short drug/tissue contact times as well as increased prevalence of drug-resistant Candida strains. We evaluated the potency of saturated fatty acids as antifungal agents and investigated their delivery by novel electrospun mucoadhesive oral patches using agar disk diffusion and biofilm assays. Octanoic (C8) and nonanoic (C9) acids were the most effective at inhibiting C. albicans growth on disk diffusion assays, both in solution or when released from polycaprolactone (PCL) or polyvinylpyrrolidone/RS100 (PVP/RS100) electrospun patches. In contrast, dodecanoic acid (C12) displayed the most potent antifungal activity against pre-existing C. albicans biofilms in solution or when released by PCL or PVP/RS100 patches. Both free and patch-released saturated fatty acids displayed a significant toxicity to wild-type and azole-resistant strains of C. albicans. These data not only provide evidence that certain saturated fatty acids have the potential to be used as antifungal agents but also demonstrate that this therapy could be delivered directly to Candida-infected sites using electrospun mucoadhesive patches, demonstrating a potential new therapeutic approach to treat oral thrush.
Highlights
Forming part of the normal oral microbial flora, Candida albicans is a human commensal fungal organism that can be detected in the oral cavity of approximately half of all healthy individuals.[1]
This balance can be disrupted by several factors such as the prolonged use of antibiotics reducing the number of oral bacteria, leading to microbial dysbiosis and the unchecked growth of C. albicans on the surface of the oral mucosa that manifests clinically as pseudomembranous or erythematous candidiasis where Candida penetrate the oral epithelium, leading to tissue damage.[2]
For SC5314, zones of growth inhibition that were significantly different from those of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) controls were observed for heptanoic (C7), octanoic (C8), and nonanoic (C9) acid (p ≤ 0.05), with octanoic and nonanoic acid showing similar levels of inhibition to that of the commonly used clinical antifungal drugs, fluconazole and miconazole (Figure 1A,C)
Summary
Forming part of the normal oral microbial flora, Candida albicans is a human commensal fungal organism that can be detected in the oral cavity of approximately half of all healthy individuals.[1]. Candidiasis is treated with a number of antifungal agents such as nystatin or with azoles such as miconazole and Received: April 24, 2020 Accepted: May 20, 2020 Published: May 20, 2020
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