An invitro model system to assess kidney pathogen interations determining outcome of Candida Albicans infections

The mouse intravenous challenge model is currently used to assay the virulence of Candida albicans strains. The main measures of virulence used are time to death or fungal burden in the tissues of mice killed at specific time points post-infection. The aim of this project is to devlop an in vitro virulence model using primary kidney cells or established cell lines. The new in vitro model will be used to evaluate the early stages of systemic infection in the kidneys, potentially replacing the use of mice in these studies.

Candida albicans is a human commensal organism that can cause life-threatening systemic infections in severely ill patients. The mouse intravenous challenge model is commonly used to model this infection. However, recent research has found that it is early events in the kidney that generate damaging immune responses and determine gross outcome of infection. Therefore, identification of the renal cells involved in these responses will allow development of an in vitro assay to model these events.