Adherence of <i>Candida albicans</i> strains isolated from AIDS patients. Comparison with pathogenic yeasts isolated from patients without HIV infection

Abstract

The adherence of yeasts to oral mucous cells is one of the main characteristics of the pathogenicity of this fungus. We studied adherence by means of a radiometric test to improve the method. We compared a sample of 40 strains of Candida albicans isolated from the buccal mucosa of HIV-infected patients with 40 strains isolated from non-HIV patients. We found that buccally isolated C. albicans strains from patients in the initial stages of AIDS adhered to oral mucous cells less than the buccally isolated C. albicans strains from subjects without HIV infection. Adherence among the strains of HIV patients increased with the disease stage until it exceeded that of the normal subjects in proportion to the decrease in the CD4/CD8 ratio. The selection of resistant strains by the preliminary antifungal treatments gave us a partial explanation for this increase. Further research should be carried out to compare these results with those obtained from atypical strains and species with high pathogenic potential, such as Candida dubliniensis, which is frequently isolated from advanced AIDS, in order to prevent systemic infections in these patients.