Morphotype markers of virulence in human candidal infections

Abstract

Summary.A study of the morphotypes of 446 strains of Candida albicans, isolated from a variety of clinical specimens, is reported. The method was based on a morphotyping scheme that has recently been described, but not all of the potential characters were used in this analysis. By this limited code, 50 different morphotypes were distinguished, the largest group comprising 23% of the population. The simplicity and good discrimination of the method make it a useful typing scheme for C. albicans. Discontinuous colonial fringes were associated with strains from oral sites and deep infections. Significantly, 67% of strains from fatal infections were of the discontinuous fringe type, compared to only 11% of strains from other infections. Further associations between morphotype and anatomical source included narrow-coarse fringes in genitourinary isolates.

The Ins and Outs of DNA Fingerprinting the Infectious Fungi

“…The conclusion of the authors of this latter study was that although this biotyping method was effective for research applications, it probably would not prove effective for clinical use. In addition to serotyping and the Odds and Abbott biotyping method, a number of other biotyping methods have been used to discriminate C. albicans strains, including morphotyping (145,270,293), resistotyping (144,215), killer yeast typing (278,279), enzyme typing (66,424,425), sugar assimilation typing (50,105,113,120) and drug susceptibility typing (294). Isoenzyme biotyping has also been successfully applied to Candida species (52,180,288).…”

Diversity of Pathogenic Candida Species Colonizing Women with and without Candida Vaginitis in Dar es Salaam Region, Tanzania

“…The most common vaginal isolate include C. albicans with a prevalence of 70-90% and less frequently non-albicans Candida species such as C. tropicalis, C. glabrata (Torulopsis glabrata), C. kefyr (C. pseudotropicalis), C. krusei, C. famata, C. parapsilosis, and C. lusitaniae (Xu et al, 1999;Abu-Elteen, 2001;Chong et al, 2003;. These different Candida species have been associated with differences in the morphotype and virulence factors such as germ tube and mycelia formation, proteinase secretion, the changes in vaginal pH, phenotypic switching and ability to cause vaginal candidiasis (Sobel et al, 1981;Sobel, 1985;Hunter et al, 1989;Cutler, 1991;De Bernardis, et al, 1993;Cassone et al, 1995;Hube, 1996;Samaranayake et al, 2003;. However, a significant increase in non-albicans Candida species and formation of virulence factors have been reported to be associated with recurrent Candida vaginitis (Sobel, 1992;Sobel, 1998;Chong, et al, 2003;.…”

The identification of pathogenic yeast strains by electrophoretic analysis of their chromosomes

“…* * Recently, C. albicans was reported to have a variable karyotype by orthogonal field agarose gel electrophoretic (OFAGE) analysis performed with clinical isolates. l 3 Resolution of DNA fragments larger than 50 kb cannot be achieved by conventional agarose gel electrophoresis. Pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) was introduced for resolving DNA of chromosomal size in yeasts'49 " and protozoa.…”