2023-06-19 16:17:23
The human body is home to bacteria and viruses, but also a collection of fungi, called mycobiota. The latter colonizes different sites of our organism, in particular the intestine.
Candida albicans is a fungus naturally present in the oral, vaginal and digestive mucous membranes of humans, widely distributed in the population but responsible for fatal opportunistic infections in immunocompromised patients. Its pathogenicity is linked in particular to its ability to convert a harmless round yeast stage into a filamentous form capable of invading the epithelial cells of the intestinal mucosa, leading to generalized infection.
Immunoglobulins A (IgA) are the most abundant antibodies secreted by the body. Secretory IgAs interact with commensal bacteria and play a central role in preserving the diversity of our bacterial flora by preventing the overgrowth of invading pathogens. Moreno Sabater et al. postulated that IgA could also preserve the diversity of the mycobiota according to mechanisms which remained to be defined. The impact of this antibody on the ecology of human mycobiota remains little studied. In particular, it was not known whether IgA deficiency, which affects 1 in 500 people in France, is associated with intestinal fungal dysbiosis.
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