Factors Affecting the Morphology of Candida Albicans

Variations of Candida albicans electrophoretic karyotypes

“…Strains transferred from 4°C basically revealed the expected morphology, with a few colonial variants; however, the colonies of strains transferred from -70°C usually had drastic changes in morphologies, generally being smaller with vigorously growing mycelia. This phenomenon was previously found for C. albicans (2,10,32), and its strong ability to be modified in response to a variety of factors, such as medium composition, pH, oxygen tension, and redox potential (20,26), have been reported. Although I have not distinguished between modifications and possible mutations when the cultures were transferred to the standard conditions after storage, the electro-karyotypes repeatedly prepared from the -70°C stocks were identical.…”

Growth and Respiration Characteristics of Candida albicans

“…However, several workers have reported a limited degree of anaerobic growth [28,48,65,87,94]. While examining the growth of single isolates of several Candida species in anaerobic gas jars, Webster and Odds found that except C. guillier-mondii and C. parapsilosis, all the isolates, including C. albicans, could grow to some extent [121].…”

Factors Influencing Growth and Morphology of Candida Albicans in a Marine Environment

“…It has also been noted that C. albicans forms germ tubes, mycelium and chlamydospores rapidly when incubated in serum and plasma (LANDAU, et al, 1965;REYNOLDS, et al, 1956). This fact has led to the use of such body fluids for the rapid identification of C. albicans (KAMINSKY, et al, 1963;MACKENZIE, 1962;TASCHDJIAN, et al, 1960), Hence, if the formation of such structures s mycelium and chlamydospores in sea water is of parallel significance with their formation in plasma, the fact that C. albicam does grow in sea water with the absence of mycelium in all but one strain tested, may indicate that the sea couid very well be a favorable habitat for this organisrn, On the other band, filamentation may represent an adaptation on the part of the organism to cope more efficiently with its surroundings, Various authors have suggested that filamentation facilitates adsorption of dilute essential nutrients and that hyphal (mycelial) development requires the presence of certain assimilable growth factors including potassium, phosphate and biotin (MAGNij 1948;McCLARY ) 1952;S κ INNER, 1960), This would indicate that C. albicans φι was the only strain able to adapt readly to the change in milieu^ the other nine strains being at a disadvantage in not being able to form germ tubes under these conditions.…”