PhD Scientific Days 2020

Pharmaceutical Sciences II. Posters

Saccharomyces Cerevisiae var. ‘Boulardii’ Infections: Diagnosis and Investigation of Pathogenicity

Előadó neve

Imre, Alexandra, MSc

Előadó munkahelye

University of Debrecen

Előadó telefonszáma

+36309237445

Előadó e-mail címe

imre.alexandra08@gmail.com

Az előadás címe

Saccharomyces Cerevisiae var. ‘Boulardii’ Infections: Diagnosis and Investigation of Pathogenicity

Szerző(k) neve és munkahelye

Alexandra Imre1,2, Walter P. Pfliegler1
1 Department of Molecular Biotechnology and Microbiology/University of Debrecen, Debrecen
2 Kálmán Laki Doctoral School of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences/University of Debrecen, Debrecen

Szekció

Pharmaceutical Sciences II. Posters

Language of the presentation

English

Section, first choice

Pharmaceutical Sciences

Section, second choice

Health Sciences

Összefoglaló szövege

Nowadays the use of probiotics is widespread due to their concieved beneficial effects on health. However, the rising popularity of probiotic products lacked a concomitant increase in scientific risk assesment and awareness of side effects. An increasing number of infections originating from probiotic use are reported worldwide, with the majority of such cases caused by the yeast Saccharomyces 'boulardii', a subtype of S. cerevisiae. Because of their frequent use, they pose a significant health risk, especially to severely ill or infant patients, and patients with prolonged hospitalization. Nonetheless, techniques that reliably link infectious cases to probiotic products are often time-consuming and difficult to implement in routine diagnostics.

Our aim was to optimize a quick and reliable multiplex PCR method for the identification of the S. cerevisiae ’boulardii’ subtype. Additionally, we wanted to find out the reasons behind the pathogenic behaviour of the yeast.

In our work we propose a multiplex PCR protocol for the identification of S. 'boulardii' based on a combined analysis of interdelta fingerprinting and microsatellite typing. To facilitate probiotic risk assessment, we investigated the genetic basis of phenotypic adaptations in clinical isolates of the probiotic yeast and conducted in vivo microevolutionary experiments in mice. These were followed by stress-phenotyping in order to reveal the traits under selection during pathogenic lifestyle.

We show that probiotic origin is common among clinical Saccharomyces, and that the new multiplex method enables rapid and unequivocal identification of probiotic yeast infections. This method can be applied for the identification of yeast infection sources, helping decisions on probiotic use.
Our data suggests that the clinical isolates and subclones derived from the experimental infection show adaptations to higher osmotic stress and altered cell wall composition compared to the commercial probiotics, resulting in increased survival in our mammalian model. Based on these results we investigated the application of genetic engineering tools to create probiotic yeasts unable to adapt to the host environment outside the gut. Such a strain would be unable to cause systemic infections, in contrast to currently marketed products with questionable safety.

Additional Information

Supervisors:
István Pócsi
E-mail address: pocsiistvan@unideb.hu

Walter P. Pfliegler
E-mail address: pfliegler.valter@science.unideb.hu

EFOP-3.6.3-VEKOP-16-2017-00009

Bemutatás módja

Poszter

Kind

Szabad

Status

elfogadva

Accepted presentation method

poszter

Előadás fájl jóváhagyás

nem rendelkezett róla

Előadó

4735

Start

13:04

End

13:07

Authors (legacy)

Alexandra Imre1,2, Walter P. Pfliegler1
1 Department of Molecular Biotechnology and Microbiology/University of Debrecen, Debrecen
2 Kálmán Laki Doctoral School of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences/University of Debrecen, Debrecen