Furthermore, the clinical features of the disease are not consistent with those of the general population of Iran. “
“The incidence of invasive fungal infection has increased significantly. A majority of the infections is caused by yeast. Clinically important yeast show species-specific differences

in susceptibility to antifungal agents therefore rapid and accurate identification of the pathogen is essential. We aimed to validate pyrosequencing of 40 nucleotides in the internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) for species identification of yeast. Amplification of ITS2 and pyrosequencing of targeted region were performed in 940 clinical isolates of yeast. A local database containing the 40 nucleotide ITS2 sequences of Buparlisib price 33 species of medically important yeast was generated using published sequences of type strains. The sequencing FDA-approved Drug Library high throughput results were searched against the local database using the BLAST algorithm to identify the species of yeast. The length of sequences obtained from pyrosequencing averaged between

40–61 nucleotides. Pyrosequencing identified 940 clinical isolates of yeast down to 14 species level, whereby 931 isolates belonged to genus Candida (11 species), four of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, three of Malassezia pachydermatis and two of Rhodotorula mucilaginosa. In addition, intraspecies specific sequence variations in Candida albicans and Candida glabrata were detected. Pyrosequencing of 40 nucleotides in ITS2 is reliable for species identification of yeast. This methodology can contribute to the high quality management of patients with fungal infections. “
“Previous studies have not systematically assessed the effect of fungal biomass on polymorphonuclear leucocyte (PMN)-induced hyphal damage (HD) of filamentous fungi. We hypothesised that fungal biomass is a significant factor affecting PMN-induced HD. One isolate each consisting of a volume of 2 × 104 conidia ml−1 of Aspergillus fumigatus, Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus terreus, Rhizopus oryzae, Rhizopus microsporus, Cunninghamella

bertholletiae, Scedosporium prolificans and Fusarium solani were incubated for six different time periods yielding biomass values between 0.01 and 0.1 optical density very (OD, 405 nm). Polymorphonuclear leucocyte were added at effector–target (E : T) ratios of 5 : 1, 10 : 1, 20 : 1, 50 : 1 and 100 : 1, and HD was assessed by XTT [2,3-bis-(2-methoxy-4-nitro-5-sulphophenyl)-2H-tetrazolium-5-carboxanilide] metabolic assay. Hyphal damage decreased with increasing biomass following the sigmoid (Emax) model (median R2: 0.87). Hyphal damage at 0.01 OD exceeded HD at 0.1 OD (P < 0.01) by >twofold in 64 out of 80 comparisons. The sigmoid curves were shifted to the right with higher E : T ratios; the EC50 values (OD values showing HD halfway between maximal and minimal HD) obtained for 50 : 1 or 100 : 1 were higher than for 5 : 1 (P < 0.01).