Yeasts of the genus
Candida have high genetic variability and are the most common opportunistic pathogenic
fungi in humans. In this study, we evaluated the genetic diversity among 120 isolates of
Candida spp. obtained from
diabetic patients, kidney transplant recipients and patients without any immune deficiencies from Paraná state,
Brazil. The analysis was performed using the ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 region and a partial sequence of 28S rDNA. In the
phylogenetic analysis, we observed a consistent separation of the species
C. albicans
,
C. dubliniensis
,
C. glabrata
,
C. tropicalis
,
C. parapsilosis
,
C. metapsilosis
and
C. orthopsilosis
, however with low intraspecific variability. In the
analysis of the
C. albicans species, two clades were formed. Clade A included the largest number of isolates (91.2%)
and the majority of isolates from GenBank (71.4%). The phylogenetic analysis showed low intraspecific genetic
diversity, and the genetic polymorphisms between
C. albicans isolates were similar to genetic divergence found in
other studies performed with isolates from Brazil. This low genetic diversity of isolates can be explained by the geographic
proximity of the patients evaluated. It was observed that yeast colonisation was highest in renal transplant
recipients and diabetic patients and that
C. albicans was the species most frequently isolated.
