Use of cost effective and rapid molecular tools for identification of Candida species, opportunistic pathogens

Background and Purpose: Candidiasis is a widespread fungal infection caused by different Candida species. Rapid identification of Candida species in clinical laboratory is becoming increasingly important since the identification and discrimination of ethological agents for early treatment. We aimed at molecular identification of commonly Candida species isolated from clinical samples by using both PCR-RFLP assay and amplification of hwp1 gene. Materials and Methods: Clinical samples comprising of vaginal specimens, cutaneous, sputum, bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL (, and blood cultures were recovered from suspected patients. Candida isolates were initially identified phenotypically and confirmed by molecular approaches based on restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR- RFLP( with MspI restriction enzyme. Amplification of hwp1 gene was performed for discrimination of C. albicans from C. dubliniensis and C. africana. Results: The most abundant species were C. albicans (n=67; 44.6 %), C. glabrata (n=10; 20 %), C. tropicalis (n=20; 13.3 %), C. krusei (n=12; 8 %), C. parapsilosis (n=11; 7.3 %). Out of 67 C. albicans species, 6 species identified as C. dubliniensis and 4 species identified as C. africana . Conclusion: High frequency of non-albicans Candida species and differences in levels of susceptibility to the antifungal agents are important issues in medicine. Therefore, to manage the Candida-related infections properly, molecular diagnostic methods would be fast, reliable and even cost-effective approaches for identification of Candida species.