Microsatellite genotyping of Candida parapsilosis from Iranian clinical isolates

Hamid Badali1, Sassan Rezaie2, Jacques F. Meis3, 4, Setareh Agha Kuchak Afshari2, Mona Modiri2, Ferry Hagen4, Rasoul Mohammadi5, Sadegh Khodavaisy2*
	

1Department of Medical Mycology and Parasitology/Invasive fungi Research Center, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran;  2Department of Medical Mycology and Parasitology, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; 3Department of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Canisius- Wilhelmina Hospital, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; 4Centre of Expertise in Mycology Radboudumc/CWZ, Nijmegen, The Netherlands;
Department of Medical Microbiology Nijmegen, The Netherlands, Radboudumc; 5Department of Medical Parasitology and Mycology, School of Medicine, Infectious Disease and Tropical Medicine Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

Candida parapsilosis is one of the most common non-albicans Candida species which can caused nosocomial infection particularly in hospitalized patients. Despite an increasing number of infections due to this species, the molecular epidemiology of clinical strains has not been well studied. We used a panel of six microsatellite markers to analyze the genetic diversity of clinical C. parapsilosis isolates from Iran. The STR typing of 81 C. parapsilosis isolates demonstrated 68 separate genotypes. Among all genotypes, 57 genotypes were observed once and the remaining 11 genotypes were identified multiple times. The panel of all six markers combined yielded a diversity index of 0.995187. The heterogeneity was observed among Iranian and the Netherlands clinical C. parapsilosis isolates. However, the high genetic diversity of Iranian C. parapsilosis isolates was observed. Therefore, molecular epidemiology could be useful for screening during outbreak investigation where this species is involved.