DRBC agar: a new tool for Candida dubliniensis identification

Abstract

Candida dubliniensis pathogenic species, which shares many phenotypic features with C. albicans, may be misidentified in the microbiology laboratory. The growth on DRBC agar at 25 degrees C was shown to be a new tool for differentiation between C. dubliniensis and C. albicans. All 27 isolates of C. dubliniensis showed in this medium rough colonies (peripheral hyphal fringes) and abundant chlamydospore production, while all 103 isolates of C. albicans showed smooth colonies without fringes or chlamydospores. DRBC agar allowed the differentiation of C. albicans from C. dubliniensis with 100 % sensitivity and specificity.

A Novel Selective Medium for Isolation of Candida dubliniensis

“…In addition, a useful extension of the available methods for the identification of C. dubliniensis is the recently developed antibody-based latex agglutination test (15), but besides the higher cost of this assay, there remain insufficient data available about how this method performs in a routine laboratory. Several other methods of distinguishing C. dubliniensis from C. albicans using discriminating culture media have been reported (16,17).These tests are simple and cheap but suffer from low standardization due to variations in the composition of media and are not appropriate for direct separation of C. dubliniensis from clinical samples.…”