Rapid identification of Candida species with species-specific DNA probes

Rapid identification of Candida species has become more important because of an increase in infections caused by species other than Candida albicans, including species innately resistant to azole antifungal drugs. We previously developed a PCR assay with an enzyme immunoassay (EIA) format to detect amplicons from the five most common Candida species by using universal fungal primers and species-specific probes directed to the ITS2 region of the gene for rRNA. We designed probes to detect seven additional Candida species (C. guilliermondii, C. kefyr, C. lambica, C. lusitaniae, C. pelliculosa, C. rugosa, and C. zeylanoides) included in the API 20C sugar assimilation panel, five probes for species not identified by API 20C (C. haemulonii, C. norvegica, C. norvegensis, C. utilis, and C. viswanathii), and a probe for the newly described species C. dubliniensis, creating a panel of 18 Candida species probes. The PCR-EIA correctly identified multiple strains of each species tested, including five identified as C. albicans by the currently available API 20C database but determined to be C. dubliniensis by genotypic and nonroutine phenotypic characteristics. Species identification time was reduced from a mean of 3.5 days by conventional identification methods to 7 h by the PCR-EIA. This method is simple, rapid, and feasible for identifying Candida species in clinical laboratories that utilize molecular identification techniques and provides a novel method to differentiate the new species, C. dubliniensis, from C. albicans.