Clonal Population of Flucytosine-Resistant Candida tropicalis from Blood Cultures, Paris, France

• Published in: Emerging infectious diseases Vol. 14; no. 4; pp. 557 - 565
• Main Authors: Desnos-Ollivier, Marie, Bretagne, Stéphane, Bernède, Claire, Robert, Vincent, Raoux, Dorothée, Chachaty, Elisabeth, Forget, Elisabeth, Lacroix, Claire, Dromer, Françoise
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States U.S. National Center for Infectious Diseases 01.04.2008; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Subjects: Antifungal Agents - pharmacology; antifungal drug resistance; Ascomycetes; Blood; Candida tropicalis; Candida tropicalis - classification; Candida tropicalis - drug effects; Candida tropicalis - genetics; candidemia; Candidiasis - microbiology; Drug Resistance, Fungal; Flucytosine; Flucytosine - pharmacology; France; Fungemia - microbiology; Genotype; Health aspects; Humans; Medical examination; Microsatellite Repeats; multilocus sequence typing; Phenotype; polymorphic microsatellite markers; Risk Factors; Time Factors; France
• ISSN: 1080-6040; 1080-6059; 1080-6059
• DOI: 10.3201/eid1404.071083

Candida tropicalis is a diploid ascomycetes yeast responsible for 4%-24% of candidemia. Resistance to flucytosine is rarely described for this species but was observed for 45 (35%) of 130 C. tropicalis isolates recovered from blood cultures in the Paris area in a 4-year survey. The aims of this study were to test the hypothesis that the flucytosine-resistant isolates could represent a subgroup and to determine the relationship between epidemiologic and genomic data. Epidemiologic data and gene sequences were analyzed, and molecular typing was performed. Our results suggest that a clone of flucytosine-resistant isolates, associated with malignancies and a lower mortality than that for other C. tropicalis isolates, is widespread in the Paris area. We propose the analysis of 2 polymorphic microsatellite markers coupled with URA3 sequencing to track the clone.