New aniline blue dye medium for rapid identification and isolation of Candida albicans

Organic dyes have long been used in diagnostic microbiology to differentiate species by color reactions. We studied the ability of a new noninhibitory medium, YM agar containing 0.01% aniline blue WS dye, Colour Index 42780 (YMAB), to identify Candida albicans among 1,554 yeast specimens obtained from seven clinical laboratories. Appropriate American Type Culture Collection and other characterized strains served as controls. A total of 487 of the clinical strains were identified as C. albicans. The remainder were other Candida species and non-Candida yeasts. Clinical isolates and controls were grown on Sabouraud agar for 18 h at 30 degrees C and then transferred to YMAB. Plates were incubated for 12 to 18 h at 30 degrees C, and colonies were observed for yellow-green fluorescence under long-wave UV light (A365). All control strains of C. albicans and Candida stellatoidea fluoresced, as did 480 of the 490 isolates designated as C. albicans (which included 3 strains of C. stellatoidea). Cells of C. albicans grown on YMAB produced germ tubes in serum. Only five of the other 1,062 non-C. albicans yeasts fluoresced. The sensitivity and specificity were 98.0 and 99.5%, respectively, with a predictive value of 99.1%. A fluorescent metabolite was found in cell wall particulate fractions of C. albicans sonic extracts grown on YMAB but not in non-C. albicans yeasts. This metabolite showed the same spectral curve as those of metabolites from whole cells in a recording spectrofluorometer when it was excited at 400 nm and scanned from 420 to 550 nm. Thus, growth on YMAB generates the production of a fluorescent moiety that can be used to specifically identify C. albicans within 12 to 18 h.