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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, October 2008, p. 3237-3242, Vol. 46, No. 10
0095-1137/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JCM.01451-08
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Debaryomyces hansenii (Candida famata), a Rare Human Fungal Pathogen Often Misidentified as Pichia guilliermondii (Candida guilliermondii) {triangledown} ,{dagger}

Marie Desnos-Ollivier,1 Marie Ragon,1,{ddagger} Vincent Robert,2 Dorothée Raoux,1 Jean-Charles Gantier,1 and Françoise Dromer1*

Institut Pasteur, Centre National de Référence Mycologie et Antifongiques, Unité de Mycologie Moléculaire; CNRS URA 3012, Paris, France,1 Centraalbureau voor Schimmelcultures, Comparative Genomics and Bioinformatics, Utrecht, The Netherlands2

Received 29 July 2008/ Accepted 1 August 2008

Debaryomyces hansenii is a hemiascomycetous yeast commonly found in natural substrates and in various types of cheese. Pichia guilliermondii is widely distributed in nature and is a common constituent of the normal human microflora. Both species have been described in human infections but are extremely difficult to differentiate phenotypically. Thus, frequent errors in identification occur. The 62 clinical and environmental isolates sent between 2000 and 2007 to the French National Reference Center for Mycoses and Antifungals as D. hansenii or P. guilliermondii were analyzed by using the carbon assimilation pattern, the presence of pseudohyphae, and sequencing of the ITS and D1/D2 regions of the rRNA gene. The objective of this study was to assess using nucleotide sequences whether phenotypic identification was accurate and whether phenotypic characteristics could be used to differentiate the two species when sequencing was not available. We found that 58% of the isolates were misidentified and belong to seven different species: P. guilliermondii, P. caribbica, P. jadinii, D. hansenii, Candida palmioleophila, C. haemulonii type II, and Clavispora lusitaniae. In conclusion, D. hansenii may not be as common a human pathogen as previously thought. Sequencing of either ITS or D1/D2 regions is a good tool for differentiating the species more frequently confused with D. hansenii, keeping in mind that reliable databases should be used.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Centre National de Référence Mycologie et Antifongiques, Unité de Mycologie Moléculaire, CNRS URA 3012, Institut Pasteur, 25 Rue du Docteur Roux, 75724 Paris, France. Phone: 33 1 40 61 33 89. Fax: 33 1 45 68 84 20. E-mail: dromer{at}pasteur.fr

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 13 August 2008.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://jcm.asm.org/.

{ddagger} Present address: Département Génétique et Ecologie Evolutives, Laboratoire Ecologie Systématique et Evolution, CNRS UMR8079, Université de Paris-Sud, Orsay, France.

Journal of Clinical Microbiology, October 2008, p. 3237-3242, Vol. 46, No. 10
0095-1137/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JCM.01451-08
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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