Candida stigmatis sp. nov., a new anamorphic yeast species isolated from flowers

Four strains of a previously unknown yeast species are described for which the name Candida stigmatis is proposed. The strains were isolated from stigmas of ant-visited Magnolia flowers in the Indian city of Hyderabad. The sequences of the D1/D2 domains of the large subunit rRNA genes, the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions and the 18S rRNA genes were identical in the isolates and differed from the corresponding sequences of all known yeast species. In a phylogenetic analysis of these sequences, the new species formed a cluster with a group of six closely related anamorph Candida species (the closest species was Candida magnoliae, with 5% nucleotide substitution in the D1/D2 domain). Sexual reproduction was not observed in the isolates. The type strain is 11-465(T). It has been deposited in Centralbureau voor Schimmelcultures (Utrecht, the Netherlands) as CBS 11464(T) and Culture Collection of Yeasts (Bratislava, Slovakia) as CCY 29-179-1(T). The GenBank accession numbers for the nucleotide sequences of its D1/D2 domain, ITS and 18S regions are GQ184144, GQ184143 and GQ184142, respectively.