VALIDITY OF CONTOUR-CLAMPED HOMOGENEOUS ELECTRIC-FIELD ELECTROPHORESIS AS A TYPING SYSTEM FOR CANDIDA-ALBICANS

Instigated by an increase in serious human Candida infections and aide d by advances in technology, there has been renewed interest in the st udy of the epidemiology of fungal infections. Among the newer techniqu es available, contour-clamped homogeneous electric field (CHEF) electr ophoresis has shown great promise as a tool for typing strains of Cand ida albicans. However, few studies have addressed the reproducibility of the preparatory and electrophoretic methods. Through a series of an alyses on clinical isolates of C. albicans, we were able to demonstrat e that (a) sample preparation induced no appreciable artifacts in CHEF banding patterns; (b) the electrophoretic patterns were reproducible over time; (c) changes in colony morphology were not associated with c hanges in the electrophoretic pattern, and (d) the method was more sen sitive than restriction enzyme analysis (REA) for demonstrating strain differences. CHEF electrophoresis is a sensitive and reproducible too l for the study of Candida epidemiology. Further use and study of this methodology is warranted.