Use of Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism Analysis To Identify Medically Important Candida spp., Including C . dubliniensis

Abstract

Non-Candida albicans Candida species are increasingly being isolated. These species show differences in levels of resistance to antimycotic agents and mortality. Therefore, it is important to be able to correctly identify the causative organism to the species level. Identification of C. dubliniensis in particular remains problematic due to the high degree of phenotypic similarity between this species and C. albicans. The use of amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis as an identification method for medically important Candida species was investigated. Our results show very clear differences among medically important Candida species. Furthermore, when screening a large collection of clinical isolates previously identified on CHROMagar as C. albicans, we found a misidentification rate of 6%. AFLP analysis is universally applicable, and the patterns can easily be stored in a general, accessible database. Therefore, AFLP might prove to be a reliable method for the identification of medically important Candida species.

Identification and Typing of Isolates of Cyphellophora and Relatives by Use of Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism and Rolling Circle Amplification

“…AFLP detects genomic restriction fragments by PCR amplification and has been shown to be a powerful method to discriminate between species at a high resolution (19,20) and supports species delimitations in black yeast-like fungi. Subsequently, rolling circle amplification (RCA) is developed as a sensitive, rapid, and costeffective technique to identify the cutaneous Cyphellophora and Phialophora species.…”

Phenotypic and Molecular Characterization of Candida nivariensis sp. nov., a Possible New Opportunistic Fungus

“…These infections show a high mortality rate, and Candida species can now be considered the fourth-most-common cause of hospital-acquired blood-borne infection (6,15,19,20). Although Candida albicans remains the most common species, there has been an increase in the number of infections caused by non-Candida albicans species, such as Candida glabrata, Candida parasilopsis, Candida tropicalis, and Candida krusei, among others, which are emerging as opportunistic pathogens (2,5,15,23). These species are generally more resistant to antifungal agents than C. albicans.…”

Development and Evaluation of a Rapid Latex Agglutination Test Using a Monoclonal Antibody To Identify Candida dubliniensis Colonies

“…However, the development of rapid and simple means of C. dubliniensis identification has been hampered by the very close phenotypic and genotypic relationships between C. dubliniensis and C. albicans, the latter remaining the most common cause of candidosis (22). At present, the most accurate means of differentiating between isolates of these two species is based on molecular biology-based techniques (5,8,10,12,13,14,15,16,17,21,30). Several phenotype-based methods for identifying C. dubliniensis and discriminating it from C. albicans have been reported.…”