Association of genotypes with infection types and antifungal susceptibilities in Candida albicans as revealed by recent molecular typing strategies.
Candida albicansis a commensal microorganism in the mucosa of healthy individuals, but is also the most common opportunistic fungal pathogen of humans. It causes from benign infections such as oral and vaginal candidiasis to fatal, systematic diseases in immunocompromised or critically ill patients. In addition to improved therapy, the rapid and accurate identification of the disease-causing strains is crucial for diagnosis, clinical treatment and epidemiological studies of candidiasis. A variety of methods for strain typing ofC. albicanshave been developed. The most commonly used methods with the focus on recently developed molecular typing or DNA-fingerprinting strategies and the recent findings in the association of specific and genetically similar genotypes with certain infection types and the correlation between azole susceptibilities and certain genotypes ofC. albicansfrom China are reviewed.
State Key Laboratory of Mycology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
Feng-Yan
FY
Bai
Candida albicans; candidiasis; molecular epidemiology; molecular typing