THE ELECTROPHORETIC KARYOTYPE OF 2 STRAINS OF CANDIDA-ALBICANS BY TRANSVERSE ALTERNATE FIELD ELECTROPHORESIS REVEALS HIGHER NUMBER OF CHROMOSOMES RANGING FROM 1 TO 3-CENTER-DOT-5 MB

The advent of the powerful electrophoretic technique, pulsed field gel electrophoresis, first developed on the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisia e, has brought a vital impulse to the genetic study on the opportunist ic pathogen Candida albicans. We report here on sizing and numbering o f Candida chromosomes using transverse alternate field electrophoresis . Our results indicate the occurrence of nine to ten electrophoretic b ands (depending on type of Candida strain), that range in approximate size from 1 to 3.5 Mbp, and may account for a higher overall chromosom e number, because at least two of these bands appear to be doublets. T his number of bands, with smaller size, is considerably higher than pr eviously reported.