SARS-CoV-2 may increase risk for oral C. albicans infection, researchers say
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The presence of SARS-CoV-2 in the mouth may compromise the production of an important antimicrobial peptide and make patients more susceptible to oral Candida albicans infection, researchers said at ASM Microbe.
Ahmed S. Sultan, BDS, PhD, a clinical assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Dentistry, and colleagues reported details of a patient recovering from COVID-19 who was experiencing unexplained chronic oral dysesthesia and dysgeusia.
Research published last year in Nature Medicine demonstrated that SARS-CoV-2 can infect cells in the mouth.
Sultan and colleagues compared saliva from the patient recovering from COVID-19 with saliva from a healthy person and found that the patient’s sample had significantly lower levels of the salivary antimicrobial peptide histatin-5, which is potent against C. albicans, a common cause of oral candidiasis.
Further evaluation of the saliva samples ex vivo showed that the patient’s saliva “exhibited significantly reduced anti-candidal efficacy” compared with the control sample, Sultan and colleagues reported.
Based on the results, they hypothesized that oral SARS-CoV-2 infection compromises the production of histatin-5 by destroying salivary gland tissue where it is produced but noted that the hypothesis was speculative.
References:
Huang N, et al. Nat Med. 2021;doi:10.1038/s41591-021-01296-8.
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Alfaifi A, et al. Abstract 3554. Presented at: ASM Microbe; June 9-13, 2022; Washington, D.C.
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