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Molecular-Genetic Approaches for Identification and Typing of Pathogenic Candida Yeasts: A Review

Shruti Singh

Candida is a medically important fungi because of its high frequency as a commensal and pathogenic microorganism causing superficial as well as invasive infections. Because the accurate diagnosis of candidiasis remains difficult, a fast and reliable assay for characterization of fungal pathogens is critical for the early initiation of adequate antifungal therapy and/or for introduction of preventive measures. As novel molecular genetic techniques are continuously introduced, their role in the management of infectious diseases has also been growing .Strain typing and delineation of the species are essential for understanding its biology, epidemiology and population structure. A wide range of molecular techniques have been used for this purpose including non-DNA-based methods (multi-locus enzyme electrophoresis), conventional DNA-based methods (electrophoretic karyotyping, random amplified polymorphic DNA, amplified fragment length polymorphism, restriction enzyme analysis with and without hybridization, rep-PCR) and DNA-based methods called exact typing (PCR based methods, microstallite length polymorphism, multilocus sequence typing, DNA microarray ) because they generate unambiguous and highly reproducible typing data. Today, molecular strategies complement conventional methods and provide more accurate and detailed insight. It can be expected that future technical development will improve their potential furthermore.In this article, we provide a critical review on the vigorously fermenting field of molecular approaches to Candida identification and typing and summarized their advantages and limitations with regard to their discriminatory power, reproducibility, cost and ease of performance.