Candida africana, a first case from Iran, susceptibility to antifungals, evaluation extracellular enzymes and biofilm formation

Introduction and Objectives: Candida africana was firstly isolated from patients in Africa and Germany by Tietz et al., as atypical C. albicans. Several researchers have also isolated and described atypical isolates of C. albicans as C. africana that causes of vaginitis. C. africana is most often recovered from vaginal swabs from patients with Candida vaginitis. Researchers have described germ tube positive and chlamydospore-negative for C. africana. C. africana has atypical carbohydrate assimilation profile (unable to assimilate the N-acetylglucosamine, glucosamine, trehalose and, DL-lactate. This report describes the isolation of C. africana from an Iranian healthy woman without vaginitis. In this report, the sensitivity to four antifungals are also studied. To our knowledge, this is the first report of the recovery of C. africana in Iran. Materials and Methods: Vaginal sample was cultured onto CHROMagar Candida and recovered yeast detected using morphological characteristics, growth at different temperatures, and ID32C identification kit (bioMérieux, France). Disk diffusion testing of fluconazole, miconazole, econazole, nystatin, amphotericin B, clotrimazole and Lamisil was used for susceptibility test. Phospholipase activity assay was performed according to Price et al., method. The acid proteinase activity of the isolate was also measured by Ombrella et al., method. The coagulase and hemolytic activity of the isolate was assessed using the rabbit plasma and blood plate. Esterase activity was determined by visual methods presented by Slifkin. Biofilm formation was determined by visual methods using Falcon conical tubes. Results: This isolate has slow grown (especially at 30-37°C) and was unable to produce chlamydoconidia on cornmeal agar. Atypical carbohydrate assimilation profiles (ID 32C profile, 7046340011) also characterize this species of Candida. The production of extracellular proteinase, phospholipase and hemolytic were confirmed in our strain; however it was without coagulase and esterase activities and biofilm formation. Our isolate fully resistant to fluconazole, dose depended to amphotericin B, sensitive to miconazole and highly sensitive to Lamisil. Conclusion: To our knowledge, this is the first isolation of C. africana in Iran. In this study, we presented several data about extracellular enzymes, antifungal susceptibility and biofilm formation in this strain

Candida africana, ID 32C, Extracellular enzymes, Biofilm formation