Genotyping of the MTL loci and susceptibility to two antifungal agents of Candida glabrata clinical isolates

• Published in: Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz
• Main Authors: María Teresa Lavaniegos-Sobrino, Candy Y Ramírez-Zavaleta, Alfredo Ponce de León, José Sifuentes-Osornio, Miriam Bobadilla-Del Valle, Andrea Rangel-Cordero, Alejandro De Las Peñas, Irene Castaño
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Ministério da Saúde 2009
• Subjects: Candida glabrata; mating type loci; MTL; clinical isolate; fluconazole; 5-fluorocytosine; Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Microbiology; QR1-502; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0074-02762009000500019; https://doaj.org/article/2f89076f668e47388bdcd4844fdf654d

The opportunistic fungal pathogen Candida glabrata is the second most common isolate from bloodstream infections worldwide and is naturally less susceptible to the antifungal drug fluconazole than other Candida species. C. glabrata is a haploid yeast that contains three mating-type like loci (MTL), although no sexual cycle has been described. Strains containing both types of mating information at the MTL1 locus are found in clinical isolates, but it is thought that strains containing type a information are more common. Here we investigated if a particular combination of mating type information at each MTLlocus is more prevalent in clinical isolates from hospitalized patients in Mexico and if there is a correlation between mating information and resistance to fluconazole and 5-fluorocytosine. We found that while both types of information at MTL1 are equally represented in a collection of 64 clinical isolates, the vast majority of isolates contain a-type information at MTL2 and α-type at MTL3. We also found no correlation of the particular combination of mating type information at the three MTL loci and resistance to fluconazole.