Variability of Candida albicans strains in ICU in Tunisia hospital

Background. - Candida albicans is a saprophyte yeast for healthy body that finds in hospitals area a favourable condition for pathogenic development. Objectives. - Evaluate the relative roles of endogenous origin and the importance of patient-to-patient transmission in C. albicans colonization in intensive care units (ICU). Patients and methods. - We screened 36 strains isolated from various clinical samples from 12 patients. Genotyping of C. albicans strains was performed by using a restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLP) and hybridization with ribosomal DNA 3 mu probe of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Results. - Persons colonized or having disease due to C.albicans at two or more body sites had the same individual type. Three patients were infected by different subtypes of strains. Southern blot with rDNA revealed that variation consisted of highly repeated rDNA. Establishment of similarity coefficient between seven patients hospitalized at the same period in ICU showed that these isolates were completely unapparented. Conclusion. - The acquisition of C. albicans in the ICU seems to be mainly endogenous and that cross infection was unlikely. (C) 2008 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.