Research Article
Antifungal Treatment Aggravates Sepsis through the Elimination of Intestinal Fungi
Figure 4
Intestinal fungi protected mice from lipopolysaccharide- (LPS-) induced sepsis. (a) Layout of the cohousing (CH) experiment setup (b–d). Wild hamsters purchased from the pet market were pretreated with water (HAM) or fluconazole (HAM+Fluc) for 7 days first. At day 0, specific pathogen-free (SPF) mice were isolated housed (SPF group) or cohoused with the water-treated (CH group) or Fluc-treated (CH+Fluc group) hamsters. Twenty-eight days later, C57B6 mice were challenged with LPS for modeling. (b) At day 0, relative fungal burden in SPF, HAM, and HAM+Fluc groups was measured with fungal 18S, ITS-2 ribosomal DNA relative copies in total fecal DNA, per group. (c) At day 28, relative fecal fungal burden were measured in SPF, CH, and CH (Fluc) groups, per group. (d) Survival rate of the different groups of C57B6 mice as shown in (a) in challenge with LPS, per group. (e) Relative fecal DNA copies of Candida tropicalis (C.trop) or Candida albicans (C.alb) in SPF mice (control group), C.trop colonized mice and C.alb colonized mice one week after colonization, per group. (f) Survival rate of the indicated groups in challenge with LPS. LPS was injected at the 30th day of fungal strain colonization or mannan administration, per group. Multiple comparisons were performed with one-way analysis of variance followed by Tukey’s multiple comparisons test (b, c, e). Mortality was compared by Kaplan-Meier survival curves and analyzed by the log-rank (Mantel-Cox) test (d, f). Adjusted for (d), for , and for (f).
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