Diversity of the diploid sequence type of Candida albicans clinical isolates from a tertiary-care hospital in Mwanza, Tanzania

Geographical strain variations of Candida albicans causing different clinical conditions in susceptible individuals have been reported. In this study, the distribution of diploid sequence type of C. albicans was investigated in Mwanza, Tanzania. A total of 64 C. albicans were selected on the basis of their antifungal susceptibility patterns, followed by multilocus sequence typing (MLST) to establish the circulating sequence types (STs). Forty-eight MLST were obtained out of 64 isolates amounting to 75% population structure differences. Out of these STs, 27 (56.3%) were new diploid ST types. C. albicans isolates with new ST were more diverse than isolates with known STs (27/29, 93.1% vs. 21/35, 60%, p 0.002). In conclusion, C. albicans from clinical specimens were highly diverse, with more than half of the detected diploid ST not previously reported in the MLST database, thus confirming the genetic differences of C. albicans from different geographical regions.