Investigation of α-glucosidase as a potential virulence factor of Candida albicans

In this study, the α-glucosidase of C. albicans as a potential virulence factor was investigated. We compared the intracellular and intact-cellular activities of two C. albicans strains: a clinical isolate (FS) and a laboratory mutant (FR) derived from the former. Although the FR strain was superior in all the virulence factors examined as well as in its in vivo virulence, similar intact-cellular α-glucosidase activities were obtained for the two strains. Moreover, the intracellular α-glucosidase activity of the FR strain was lower than that of the FS strain. Making a survey on 20 clinical isolates of C. albicans, the α-glucosidase activities did not correlate with either the extracellular aspartic proteinase (EAP) or the extracellular phospholipase (EP) activities, although we found a correlation between the EAP and EP activities. In conclusion, our experiments do not support the view that the inducible α-glucosidase is a virulence factor of C. albicans.