Serotyping of pulmonary isolates of Candida albicans. A preliminary study

A total of twenty strains of Candida albicans isolated from chronic pulmonary lesions were subjected to serotyping procedure adopting the conventional agglutination reactions. Prior to serotyping all the twenty strains were isolated on at least three different occasions and were identified by the standard accepted criteria (germ tube production, colony morphology on cornmeal Tween 80 agar and sugar fermentation reactions). Of the twenty strains, four strains belonged to serotype B and the remaining sixteen had the agglutination profile consistent with serotype A. The serotyping was undertaken with locally raised antisera against serotype A and serotype B. The proposed serotyping procedure has a definite potential in the epidemiological investigations of Candida albincans.