Abstract

Candida albicans is a major cause of oral and esophageal infections in elder persons with poor oral hygiene and immuncompromised patients with hyposalivation, diabetes mellitus, prolonged use of antibiotics or immunosuppressive drugs. Oral thrush is a common form of oropharyngeal candidiasis whose clinical features consist of white patches appearing as discrete lesions on the buccal mucosa, throat, tongue, and gum linings that develop into confluent pseudomembranes resembling milk curds. We recently reported a simple murine model of thrush-type oral candidiasis that mimics the natural infectionin humans and is useful for both symptomatological and mycological evaluation of the responsiveness to antifungal treatments. By using this oral candidiasis model, protective activities of oral administration of several types of herbal preparations such as teatree oil, clove preparation and bovine lactoferrin were clarified. The mechanisms of protective actions of lactoferrin against oral candidiasis were particularly elucidated to include augmentation of T-cell activities of lesional lymphoid tissues. More recent studies suggested that saliva from healthy persons also shows a protective action for this murine oral candidiasis model.