Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) Analysis of Candida auris Metabolites

Unique metabolic features allow fungi to colonize and persist within the human host. Investigations of unique metabolic fingerprints of a pathogenic fungus can provide a more complete understanding of the infection process and an interpretation of associations between genotype and phenotype. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) has proved to be one of the most powerful analytical techniques used for qualitative and quantitative detection of cellular metabolites. This technique has been used for comparative metabolomic analyses of both intracellular and secreted metabolites under variable conditions. This book chapter describes the use of GC-MS in the detection of both intracellular and secreted metabolites from Candida auris, a newly emerging fungal pathogen representing a serious global health threat due to its multidrug resistance profile. The identified fungal metabolites are compared using available software in order to assign a correlation between the pattern of accumulation of metabolites and behavior of the organism.