Authors: Vikas Jha, Raunak Giri, Joshua Koli, Diksha Poojari, Vrushali Dhamapurkar, Ashish Jhangiani, Divya Nikumb, Simeen Rumani, Mrunmayi Markam, Aparna Sahu, Shivani Kore, Saloni Rasal.
Candida species is a leading cause of systemic mycosis in hospitalized patients, as well as morbidity and mortality globally. The purpose of this study was to observe the genetic diversity of Candida species among different soils located in different regions of Mumbai Suburban and their drug resistance pattern. A total of 86 soil samples were screened by using Candida Differential Agar and 19 isolates were obtained. Molecular analysis of these isolates revealed that 14 Candida albicans were the most common species, followed by 3 Candida tropicalis and 2 Candida krusei. The drug resistance pattern was studied by performing an Antifungal Susceptibility Test (AST) and determining Minimum Inhibitory concentration (MIC). The isolates did not show much variation in their resistance profile and were all resistant to antifungal drugs except, Amphotericin B. Candida tropicalis was highly resistant to Amphotericin B withstanding a concentration of 500μg/ml. Random amplified polymorphic DNA of Candida species showed that these species were highly similar to each other except for Candida tropicalis which showed a divergence while the other species were in the pair according to dendrogram analysis. The findings of the current study revealed genetic diversity and a correlation between antifungal susceptibility profiles and the genotype groups of Candida species isolated from different soil samples. We also found that Amphotericin B and Voriconazole were the most effective antifungal drugs against different Candida species.
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