GERM TUBE-FORMING CELLS OF CANDIDA-ALBICANS ARE MORE SUSCEPTIBLE TO CLOTRIMAZOLE-INDUCED KILLING THAN YEAST-CELLS

  • 1 January 1985
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 23  (1) , 63-68
Abstract
Yeast and germ tube-forming cells of C. albicans were compared with respect to their susceptibility to killing induced by the imidazole antifungal clotrimazole. Cultures consisting largely of germ tube-forming cells or exclusively yeast cells were prepared by incubating cells of a germ tube-proficient strain in a proline-containing phosphate buffer at 37.degree. C or 25.degree. C, respectively. When treated with clotrimazole at 37.degree. C, the cultures of germ tube cells lost colony-forming ability much more rapidly than those of yeast cells. This difference was diminished in the cells preincubated at 37.degree. C but prevented from forming germ tubes by 5 mM cysteine, a suppressor of germ formation. In another C. albicans isolate showing a very poor capacity to form germ tubes at 37.degree. C, such a difference in killing rate was much smaller than that for the germ tube-proficient strain. When an isogenic pair of strains, one proficient and the other deficient in germ tube formation, were compared with each other, germ tube-forming cultures of the former were found to be more sensitive than yeast cell cultures of the latter. It is inferred from these results that the germ tube-forming cell of C. albicans is more sensitive to clotrimazole-induced killing than the yeast cell.

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