New publication from the group in Nature Communications

| by Ana Depetris Chauvin

Our research work entitled “Candida expansion in the gut of lung cancer patients associates with an ecological signature that supports growth under dysbiotic conditions” has been published in the journal Nature Communications.

Candida fungi can live in the gut as commensals, but when growing uncontrollably they can lead to invasive candidiasis, a bloodstream infection very dangerous for immunocompromised patients. As a first step prior to bloodstream infection, Candida species outgrow other fungi and dominate the gut community. How gut bacteria might promote or restrict this overgrowth is still unclear.

In this paper, we studied the role of bacterial communities on Candida expansion in the gut of lung cancer patients at risk of candidiasis. By developing machine learning models we could predict high or low Candida levels and propose a mechanism for Candida colonization.

Our results suggest that dysbiotic changes to the local microflora can create a metabolic niche for Candida species to use lactate as a carbon source under low oxygen conditions. We speculate that this advantage may help Candida to overtake their fungal competitors in the human gut.

The research led by Prof. Gianni Panagiotou and first author Bastian Seelbinder was a successful collaboration with MBD members Xiuqiang Chen and Mohammad Mirhakkak and external collaborators from Korányi National Institute of Pulmonology, the Technical University of Denmark, and the Jena University Hospital. We are very grateful to our collaborators and funding sources from the German agencies DFG and BMBF who may this work possible.

 

Original Publication

Seelbinder B*, Lohinai Z*, Vazquez-Uribe R, Brunke S, Chen X, Mirhakkak M, Lopez-Escalera S, Dome B, Megyesfalvi Z, Berta J, Galffy G, Dulka E, Wellejus A, Weiss GJ, Bauer M, Hube B, Sommer MOA, Panagiotou G (2023) Candida expansion in the gut of lung cancer patients associates with an ecological signature that supports growth under dysbiotic conditions Nature Communications