DEVELOPMENT AND VERIFICATION OF FINGERPRINTING PROBES FOR CANDIDA-GLABRATA

Since Candida glabrata has emerged as one of the most common Candida p athogens. DNA probes have been developed which fulfil the requirements for effective fingerprinting. Using a screen for complex genomic frag ments containing moderately repetitive sequences. seven DNA probes wer e cloned which generate complex Southern blot hybridization patterns w ith EcoRI-digested C. glabrata DNA. All of the probes are species-spec ific and the majority cross-hybridize to varying degrees. The capacity of two of the probes, Cg6 and Cg12, to measure genetic distance betwe en independent isolates is verified by comparing clustering in dendrog rams based on similarity coefficients computed between all pairs of 39 independent isolates fingerprinted with Cg6, Cg12 and randomly amplif ied polymorphic DNA. The capacity of the probes Cg6 and Cg12 to assess microevolution in clonal populations of infecting C. glabrata over ti me is also demonstrated. These probes can now be used in large compute r-assisted epidemiological studies.