A Candida albicans dispersed, repeated gene family and its epidemiologic applications.

Abstract

Candida albicans causes a wide variety of infections but can readily be isolated from the skin and mucosa of healthy individuals. To enable high-resolution epidemiologic studies on this common pathogen, a species-specific DNA probe has been isolated from its genome. There are w10 copies of the sequence dispersed among the chromosome-sized DNA molecules resolved by pulsed-field electrophoresis. New DNA polymorphisms in this gene family arise at high rates. As a consequence, this probe will readily distinguish strains from different patients in the same hospital and from various sites in individual patients. The DNA polymorphisms detected by using this probe are largely due to internal changes in members of the family rather than movement to new genomic locations. This suggests recombination or gene conversion rather than transposition as the mechanism producing the observed variation.

Wall mannoproteins in cells from colonial phenotypic variants of Candida albicans

“…Since the colony morphologies were (Fig. l), in most cases, closely similar to those of the colonial phenotypes described by Slutsky et al (1985) in C. albicans 3153A, we have used, where possible, the terminology proposed by these authors to describe our colony variants. Of the total number of primary colonies examined after the initial plating (Table l), 2139 (64.6%) were smooth-white (SW ; Fig 1 b), 1126 (34.04%) were wrinkled (W; Fig.…”

“…P . Martinez and others antifungal drugs (Slutsky et al, 1985). Thus, not only can more than one strain colonize the same individual in some cases (Odds, 1987), but also different phenotypes of a single strain may be found at the same site of infection (Odds, 1987;Soll et al, 1987).…”

“…It has been reported that most strains of C. albicans, and some strains of C. tropicatis, switch at a high frequency, both in uivo and in uitro, between different phenotypes, distinguishable by colony morphology on agar (Pomes et al, 1987;Slutsky et al, 1985Slutsky et al, , 1987. At least three distinct switching systems (the 3153A strain switching system, the WO-1 strain transition system, and the smooth-whi te-heavy-myceliated transition), which are strain-specific and give rise to a limited number of colony phenotypes, have been described in C .…”

“…At least three distinct switching systems (the 3153A strain switching system, the WO-1 strain transition system, and the smooth-whi te-heavy-myceliated transition), which are strain-specific and give rise to a limited number of colony phenotypes, have been described in C . aZbicans (Slutsky et al, 1985(Slutsky et al, , 1987. It has been suggested that switching may modulate the pathogenic character of C. albicans by conferring on the fungal cells the plasticity to avoid the host immune system and to develop resistance to J .…”

Antigens and immune responses in Candida albicans infection

“…When Candida DNA is digested with a restriction endonuclease and electrophoresed under standard conditions, a pattern of bands representing restriction fragment length polymorphisms is produced (18,19). The resulting DNA 'fingerprint' is stable through several hundred doublings of a single Candida isolate.…”