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Clinical and Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology, May 2001, p. 585-587, Vol. 8, No. 3
1071-412X/01/$04.00+0   DOI: 10.1128/CDLI.8.3.585-587.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

New Assay for Measuring Cell Surface Hydrophobicities of Candida dubliniensis and Candida albicans

M. A. Jabra-Rizk,1,* W. A. Falkler Jr.,2 W. G. Merz,3 and T. F. Meiller1

Department of Oral Medicine1 and Department of OCBS,2 Dental School, University of Maryland, and Department of Pathology, The Johns Hopkins University,3 Baltimore, Maryland

Received 20 October 2000/Returned for modification 15 December 2000/Accepted 27 February 2001

Hydrophobic interactions, based on cell surface hydrophobicity (CSH), are among the many and varied mechanisms of adherence deployed by the pathogenic yeast Candida albicans. Recently it was shown that, unlike C. albicans, C. dubliniensis is a species that exhibits an outer fibrillar layer consistent with constant CSH. Previously, C. dubliniensis grown at 25 or 37°C was shown to coaggregate with the oral anaerobic bacterium Fusobacterium nucleatum. C. albicans, however, demonstrated similar coaggregation only when hydrophobic or grown at 25°C. This observation implied that coaggregation of Candida cells with F. nucleatum is associated with a hydrophobic yeast cell surface. To test this hypothesis, 42 C. albicans and 40 C. dubliniensis clinical isolates, including a C. albicans hydrophobic variant, were grown at 25 and 37°C and tested with the established hydrophobicity microsphere assay, which determines CSH levels based on the number of microspheres attached to the yeast cells. The coaggregation assay was performed in parallel experiments. All C. dubliniensis isolates grown at either temperature, hydrophobic 25°C-grown C. albicans isolates, and the C. albicans hydrophobic variant, unlike the 37°C-hydrophilic C. albicans isolates, exhibited hydrophobic CSH levels with the microsphere assay and simultaneously showed maximum, 4+, coaggregation with F. nucleatum. The parallel results obtained for C. dubliniensis using both assays support the use of the CoAg assay both as a rapid assay to determine CSH and to differentiate between C. dubliniensis and C. albicans.


* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Oral Medicine, Dental School, UMAB, 666 W. Baltimore St., Baltimore, MD 21201. Phone: (410) 708-7628. Fax: (410) 706-0519. E-mail: mrizk{at}umaryland.edu.


Clinical and Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology, May 2001, p. 585-587, Vol. 8, No. 3
1071-412X/01/$04.00+0   DOI: 10.1128/CDLI.8.3.585-587.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.



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