Covid, Candida could play a role in severe forms of the disease

Candida albicans, a fungus normally present in the genital mucous membranes and in the gastro-intestinal tract, could be implicated in severe forms of Covid. The hypothesis of a group of researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, who published a study in the journal Nature Immunology
. Severe Covid characterized by excessive inflammation which can persist even after the infection has resolved, giving rise to Long Covid. According to researchers, the cause of severe forms could be an imbalance in the intestinal mycotic flora. Excessive levels of some fungi could in turn trigger inflammation that worsens the symptoms of the disease. Scientists have observed that, in patients with severe Covid or Long Covid, high levels of fungi, particularly Candida albicans, are detected in the intestine. Consequentially, an antifungal treatment could improve the symptoms of Sars-CoV-2 infection.

Healthy immune system

Although the microbiome is largely composed of bacteria, recent studies have shown that Mushrooms contribute to the regulation of maintaining a healthy immune system. And given that people with Covid have a greater risk of invasive candidiasis (infection that occurs on the mucous membranes), pulmonary aspergillosis (infection caused by fungi of the Aspergillus genus) and mucormycosis (caused by fungi of the Mucorales species): this highlights how the diners of human mycobiome (formed by the group of fungi that live in the intestine) can cause diseases in Sars-CoV-2 positive subjects. In particular, in the new study, in a cohort of 36 healthy and uninfected controls compared to 91 patients hospitalized for Covid, the authors (Kusakabe and others) found that individuals with Covid have a specific immune response to yeasts (a group of fungi), correlated with the outcomes of the disease. For example, systemic IgG antibody titers to Saccharomyces cerevisiae or “brewer's yeast” (ASCA IgG) were increased in the plasma of individuals hospitalized with Covid compared to healthy controls.

New therapeutic strategies

Taking into account the severity of the disease, ASCA IgG levels were significantly higher than in healthy controls only in the 66 individuals with Severe Covid (requiring oxygen or mechanical ventilation), but not in the 25 patients with moderate disease. Since ASCA antibodies are directed against mannan (a polysaccharide present in many yeasts), the authors tested antibodies directed against other human fungi and found significant increases in antibodies specific for Candida albicans (ACAL IgG) e Candida parapsilosis, in the plasma of patients with severe Covid compared to healthy controls. Our results – they say – suggest that Gut fungi may contribute to immune activation during inflammatory diseases: This opens the way to new potential therapeutic strategies for Covid with prolonged symptoms.

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