BioModels offers a Candida albicans infection model. Candida albicans is the most commonly identified pathogenic Candida species in human infections and can impact both immunocompromised and healthy populations. C. albicans has adapted an expansive set of virulence factors and fitness attributes that enable this fungus to survive in extremely diverse environments and infect humans and animals through a variety of routes. This model could be used to assess candidate anti-fungal treatment efficacy or characterize the biodistribution of test articles in a model of systemic inflammation due to infection. Representative data shows infection kinetics including body weight, survival, and CFU in critical organs for multiple different routes of infection with C. albicans.

• Advantages: natural human pathogen, optional localized or systemic infection, ability to alter disease severity based on route of infection.
• Disadvantages: variability in fungal CFU recovery.

• C57Bl/6 Mice

• Survival
• Percent weight change
• Local and systemic fungal enumeration

• Body temperature
• Immunophenotyping
• Terminal histopathology and/or IHC analyses
• Cytokine analysis
• Custom assays