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Sex Transm Infect 2008;84:103-106 doi:10.1136/sti.2007.025700
  • Basic science

Genotype distribution of Candida albicans strains associated with different conditions of vulvovaginal candidiasis, as revealed by microsatellite typing

  1. S R Fan1,2,
  2. F Y Bai3,
  3. Q P Liao1,
  4. Z H Liu1,
  5. J Li3,
  6. X P Liu4
  1. 1
    Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Peking University First Hospital, Beijing 100034, China
  2. 2
    Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Peking University Shenzhen Hospital, Shenzhen 518036, China
  3. 3
    Systematic Mycology and Lichenology Laboratory, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
  4. 4
    Department of Laboratory Science, Peking University Shenzhen Hospital, Shenzhen 518036, China
  1. Dr F Y Bai, Systematic Mycology and Lichenology Laboratory, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; baify{at}im.ac.cn
  • Accepted 24 October 2007
  • Published Online First 30 October 2007

Abstract

Objective: To compare genotypes of Candida albicans strains causing different conditions of vulvovaginal candidiasis (VVC) in Chinese women.

Methods: C albicans strains were isolated from the vaginas of patients with different conditions of VVC. The genotypes of the strains were investigated based on single-strand conformation polymorphisms (SSCP) of the PCR amplified microsatellite locus CAI.

Results: A total of 93 independent C albicans strains was isolated from patients with mild-to-moderate (n  =  37) or severe (n  =  56) VVC. Thirty of the patients enrolled suffered recurrent VVC. Twenty-six distinct genotypes tentatively designated as A to Z were identified from the 93 C albicans strains compared on the basis of their CAI SSCP patterns. The majority (72.0%) of the strains possessed genotypes A to D, which were similar in the CAI SSCP profiles and were designated as the dominant genotypes. The overall frequencies of the four dominant genotypes were 87.5% (49/56) and 48.6% (18/37; p<0.001) in the C albicans strains from patients with severe and mild-to-moderate VVC, respectively. The strains with the dominant genotypes occupied 83.3% (25/30) and 66.7% (42/63; p = 0.094) in the C albicans strains from patients with recurrent VVC and sporadic VVC, respectively.

Conclusion: The frequency of C albicans strains with the dominant genotypes (A to D) from patients with severe VVC was significantly higher than that from patients with mild-to-moderate VVC, implying that the CAI genotype distribution of C albicans strains correlates with the severity of VVC.

Footnotes

  • Funding: This study was supported by grants 2004BA720A05-01 to QPL and 2004BA720A05-02 to FYB from the Key Technologies R&D Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology, China.

  • Competing interests: None declared.

  • Contributors: QPL and FYB were the principal investigators for the study; SRF and QPL contributed to the design of the clinic study; FYB and JL contributed to the design of the laboratory study; SRF, QPL and XPL performed the clinic work; JL, FYB, XPL and ZHL performed the laboratory work; JL and SRF performed the statistical analyses; FYB, SRF, and QPL wrote the paper.

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