Host: The Japanese Society for Medical Mycology
Malassezia yeasts are cutaneous microflora commonly found in animals and human and sometimes cause various opportunistic skin diseases. As most of Malassezia species are lipid-dependent, lipolytic enzymes are necessary for them to obtain lipids from the environment and then lipase and phospholipase which degrade neutral lipids and phospholipids, respectively, are thought to play an important role for growth and pathogenicity of Malassezia. Here we investigated a common culture condition for several Malassezia spp. and these secretory lipase and phospholipase activities comparably. Interestingly, lipase and phospholipase activities in M. globosa strains revealed the highest values in the lipid-dependent Malassezia spp.. M. globosa also showed higher activities of these lipolytic enzymes than M. pachydermatis known to possess high phospholipase activity. From these results, it was supposed that secretory lipase and phospholipase activities relate to the dominant survival of M. globosa found in many patients.
