Expression of Candida albicans secreted aspartyl proteinase in acute vaginal candidiasis.

In order to analyze the in vivo expression of Candida albicans secreted aspartyl proteinases (SAP) in human vaginal infection, the vaginal secretion from 29 human subjects was collected by vaginal swab, and the expression of SAP1-SAP6 was detected by reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction using specific primer sets. It was found that Sap2 and Sap5 were the most common genes expressed during infection; Sap3 and Sap4 were detected in all subjects and all 6 SAP genes were simultaneously expressed in some patients with vaginal candidiasis. It was suggested that the SAP family is expressed by Candida albicans during infection in human and that Candida albicans infection is associated with the differential expression of individual SAP genes which may be involved in the pathogenesis of vaginal candidiasis.