PHENOTYPE AND GENOTYPE OF CANDIDA-ALBICANS STRAINS ISOLATED FROM PREGNANT-WOMEN WITH RECURRENT VAGINITIS

Fourteen out of 80 pregnant women receiving prenatal care presented si gns and symptoms of recurrent vaginal candidiasis. Candida albicans st rains were isolated from 12 patients (85.7%), and these were submitted to morphotyping (morphological characteristics of the colony), antifu ngal typing (pattern of sensitivity to amphotericin B, 5-fluorcytosine , myconazole, ketoconazole and fluconazole) and genotyping (electropho retic migration of DNA fragments digested with EcoRI and HinfI). Alter ation of morphotype and antifungal type was observed in 50% of the pat ients, bur the genotype of the strains isolated from the same patients at different times was identical in all subjects. The predominant mor photypes presented continuous fringes and the basic changes observed a mong antifungal types was the emergence of strains resistant to mycona zole, which was the drug used for the treatment of the first episode o f vaginitis. We conclude that recurrent vaginal candidiasis is caused by the persistence of a single yeast genotype that undergoes morpholog ical and behavioral changes in the presence of antifungal agents due t o the selective pressure to which it is submitted.