Chlamydospore formation on Staib agar. Observations made before Candida dubliniensis was described

When routinely using Staib agar to detect Cryptococcus neoformans in AIDS p atients by the brown colour effect of its colonies, rough-looking colonies of a questionable variety of Candida albicans were also found. Microscopica lly, these colonies consisted of pseudohyphae with abundant masses of chlam ydospores. However, the colonies of C. albicans were smooth-edged and forme d by round-oval blastospores only. Such observations were made during the m ycological supervision of 36 cryptococcosis cases during the 1987-94 period . All these questionable cultures of Candida spp. were discarded. However, because the corresponding photographs of and records on such strains were f ound to be identical with those recently published by molecular biologists under the title 'Chlamydospore formation on Staib agar as a species-specifi c characteristic of Candida dubliniensis' [Staib, P. & Morschhauser, J. (19 99) Mycoses 42, 521-524], the present communication presents a report on su ch observations in a representative and exemplary case of an AIDS patient.