Carbohydrate assimilation profiles of the first Italian Candida dubliniensis clinical isolates recovered from an HIV-infected individual

A total of six Candida dubliniensis isolates were obtained during 1 year of monitoring by monthly swabs from the oral cavity of an asymptomatic human immunodeficiency virus-infected individual in Catania, Italy. To the authors' knowledge, this constitutes the first recovery of C. dubliniensis from a human in Italy. Our identification procedure was based on colony color on CHROMagar Candida and carbohydrate assimilation profiles obtained by two commercial systems: API ID 32C and API 20C AUX. Karyotyping by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis confirmed the phenotypic identification. The biocodes obtained with API 20C AUX and with API ID 32C were 6172134 and 7142140015, respectively, for all six isolates. Both biocodes corresponded to those described in the literature as being produced by most C. dubliniensis isolates with each of the two identification systems. Our results confirm that both API 20C AUX and API ID 32C are able to rapidly and accurately differentiate C. dubliniensis from C. albicans.