Molecular identification of Candida species, assessment of the antifungal susceptibility and the genetic relationship of Candida albicans isolated from immunocompromised patients in Kerman, Iran

Introduction and Objectives: The goal of this study was to identify the candida isolates to the species level using conventional as well as molecular methods and to assess the in vitro susceptibility of C. albicans isolates. Materials and Methods: A total of 80 clinical samples of immunocompromised patients were collected. Yeast isolates were identified to the species level using conventional as well as PCR-RFLP methods. Also, four primers were used for RAPD analysis of C. albicans strains. All C. albicans isolates were tested for their in vitro susceptibility to the Fluconazole, Itraconazole, Amphotericin B and Nystatin according to the CLSI M27-A3 standard. Results: Of the sixty-one Candida isolates, the most common species was C. albicans (34.42%), followed by C. glabrata (24.59%), C. parapsilosis complex (18.03%), C. krusei (14.75%), C. kefyr (3.27%), C. lusitaniae (3.27%) and C. dubliniensis (1.63%). RAPD-PCR results indicated C. albicans isolates allocate into three clusters (A, B, C) with higher than 80% homology level. The antifungal susceptibility results suggest that C.albicans isolates are the most susceptible to Amphotericin B (100%) followed by Itraconazole (90.47%). Conclusions: Our funding indicated that identification to species level is important for choosing proper antifungal treatment mainly in immunocompromised patients. We also could observe that RAPD assay was able to identify genetic variability among C. albicans isolates.

کلیدواژه ها:

Candida spp. ، RFLP-PCR ، RAPD-PCR ، Antifungal susceptibility ، Iran.