Candida fungi are among the most common human fungal pathogens and invasive candidiasis is one of the predominant invasive mycoses that mainly affects hospitalized patients with suppression of the immunological system and breaches in skin or mucosal barriers. Rapid diagnosis and implementation of appropriate antifungal treatment are key to achieving recovery. In recent years, attention has been drawn to the increasing significance of Candida species other than C. albicans, in particular C. auris and fluconazole-resistant C. parapsilosis. The aim of this work was to present the species spectrum and drug susceptibility of 570 Candida strains isolated from candidemia cases diagnosed in patients hospitalized in southern Poland in the period 2017–2022. The results of Candida-positive blood cultures obtained from five hospitals were analyzed. C. albicans was the most common species, accounting for 42.6% of all strains, followed by Nakaseomyces glabratus (formerly C. glabrata) and C. parapsilosis complex—22.1% and 18.8%, respectively. No C. auris was found. Fluconazole resistance was found in 4.9% of C. albicans strains, 34.7% of N. glabratus strains, and 8.7% of C. parapsilosis complex strains.

This study compared immune activation of gingival fibroblasts (GFs) by Porphyromonas gingivalis strains carrying different variants of peptidylarginine deiminase (PPAD). To this aim, GFs from donors with periodontitis (PD) (n=4) and healthy controls (CTRL) (n=2) were infected with P. gingivalis strains expressing either ppad with missense mutations (A390T + T421I) (n=2, moderate PD) or clusters of specific polymorphic variants (S203P + G231N, E232T, N235D) and (S203P + G231N, E232T, N235D + N291D + A515V + S528G) (n=2, advanced PD). Enzymatic activity of PPAD from these strains was determined using a colorimetric assay. Immune activation of infected GFs was analysed using qRT-PCR. P. gingivalis strains carrying clusters of specific polymorphic variants of ppad induced ~two-fold increase of PPAD activity and upregulated TNF-α, IL-6, and COX-2 expression by infected GFs compared to the reference ATCC 33277 strain. Contrary, P. gingivalis strains containing missense mutations showed decreased PPAD activity and elicited inflammatory response comparable to that presented by the ATCC 33277 strain. This study demonstrated that the inflammatory outcome of P. gingivalis infection results from the interplay between bacterial virulence driven by PPAD sequence diversity and enzymatic activity, and the intrinsic hyperreactivity of host GFs associated with PD.