Why Do These Yeasts Smell So Good? Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) Produced by Malassezia Species in the Exponential and Stationary Growth Phases

Malassezia synthesizes and releases volatile organic compounds (VOCs), small molecules that allow them to carry out interaction processes. These lipid-dependent yeasts belong to the human skin mycobiota and are related to dermatological diseases. However, knowledge about VOC production and its function is lacking. This study aimed to determine the volatile profiles of Malassezia globosa, Malassezia restricta, and Malassezia sympodialis in the exponential and stationary growth phases. The compounds were separated and characterized in each growth phase through headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS). We found a total of 54 compounds, 40 annotated. Most of the compounds identified belong to alcohols and polyols, fatty alcohols, alkanes, and unsaturated aliphatic hydrocarbons. Unsupervised and supervised statistical multivariate analyses demonstrated that the volatile profiles of Malassezia differed between species and growth phases, with M. globosa being the species with the highest quantity of VOCs. Some Malassezia volatiles, such as butan-1-ol, 2-methylbutan-1-ol, 3-methylbutan-1-ol, and 2-methylpropan-1-ol, associated with biological interactions were also detected. All three species show at least one unique compound, suggesting a unique metabolism. The ecological functions of the compounds detected in each species and growth phase remain to be studied. They could interact with other microorganisms or be an important clue in understanding the pathogenic role of these yeasts.

• Publication year

  2023

• Venue

  Molecules

• Publication date

  2023-03-01

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.3390/molecules28062620PMID 36985592PMCID 10056951
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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