Glabridin Triggers Over-Expression of Apoptosis Inducing Factor (Aif) Gene in Candida Albicans

Background and purpose: candida albicans is a prevalent human fungal pathogen that can cause a wide spectrum of diseases, from superficial mucosal infections to systemic disorders, in patients with impaired immunity. glabridin is a pyranoisoflavan originally extracted from root extract of glycyrrhiza glabra. glabridin can also mediate apoptosis in yeast cells by changing the mitochondrial membrane potential, activation of caspaselike proteases, and dna cleavage. the aim of this study was to investigate the mechanism of action of glabridin in c. albicans.materials and methods: candida albicans atcc14053 was applied as the standard strain. total rna was extracted from the isolate under glabridintreated and untreated conditions. to evaluate the alternations in the apoptosis inducing factor (aif) gene expression, realtime polymerase chain reaction (realtime pcr) was performed, and the obtained data were analyzed using rest software.results: expression of the aif gene was represented as the ratio of expression relative to the reference gene. according to the rest reg; output, the expression of the aif gene increased significantly (p<0.05) under the glabridintreated condition.conclusion: our results suggested that glabridin may induce apoptosis through the caspaseindependent route and might be considered as an anticandida agent.