Molecular epidemiology of Candida albicans and Candida glabrata strains isolated from intensive care unit patients in Poland

Abstract

Over the last decades, Candida spp have been responsible for an increasing number of infections, especially in patients requiring intensive care. Knowledge of local epidemiology and analysis of the spread of these pathogens is important in understanding and controlling their transmission. The aim of this study was to evaluate the genetic diversity of 31 Candida albicans and 17 Candida glabrata isolates recovered from intensive care unit patients from the tertiary hospital in Krakow between 2011-2012. The strains were typed by random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) polymerase chain reaction using five primers (CD16AS, HP1247, ERIC-2, OPE-3 and OPE-18). The results of the present investigation revealed a high degree of genetic diversity among the isolates. No clonal relationship was found among the C. albicans strains, whereas two C. glabrata isolates were identical. The source of Candida infection appeared to be mostly endogenous; however, the presence of two clonal C. glabrata strains suggested the possibility of cross-transmission of these pathogens. Our study confirmed the high discriminatory power of the RAPD technique in the molecular typing of Candida clinical isolates. This method may be applied to the evaluation of transmission routes of pathogenic fungi on a local level.

Current trends in candidemia and species distribution among adults: Candida glabrata surpasses C. albicans in diabetic patients and abdominal sources

“…Colonisation with two or more species is probably common but not often recognised. [24][25][26] C. albicans remains the most common Two patients each with two species. 2 One patient with two species.…”

Multilocus sequence typing of Candida albicans isolates from a burn intensive care unit in Iran

“…1). These findings may suggest micro-evolutionary changes of a single strain occurring during adaptation to varying environmental conditions (Bonfim-Mendonça et al, 2013;Paluchowska et al, 2014).…”

Evaluation of Polymorphic Locus Sequence Typing for Candida glabrata Epidemiology

“…Since azoles such as fluconazole are widely used for prophylaxis or empirical therapy in high-risk patients (18), this could drive nosocomial transmission. Indeed, nosocomial transmission of C. glabrata has been repeatedly documented, although with various degrees of confidence (4,11,(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27). To make this connection, a strain-typing system is required that combines high resolution (diversity index of Ͼ0.9, where 1.0 represents 100% resolution) with reproducibility (facilitating comparisons over periods of months or longer) and, ideally, portability (facilitating comparisons to other labs and to strain databases).…”

“…The most widely applied include (i) multilocus sequence typing (MLST), which analyzes 6 relatively conserved housekeeping loci for single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (29,30), (ii) pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), which compares total DNA banding patterns with or without restriction enzyme digestion (14,23,31), (iii) multilocus variable-number tandem-repeat analysis (MLVA, also known as microsatellite analysis), which examines length variation in 6 to 9 PCR-amplified loci that contain polymorphic tandem repeats (32)(33)(34)(35), and (iv) random amplification of polymorphic DNA (RAPD), which compares banding patterns following PCR with a nonspecific primer (26,36). In general, these methods are comparable in their strain resolution, achieving diversity indexes of ca.…”