Abstract

Candidiasis of the eye and its symptoms may lead to blindness in many patients. This study aimed to survey and diagnose ocular candidiasis by identification of the causative Candida spp. from 165 swabs samples collected from patients suffering from conjunctivitis (pink eye infection). A total of 35 clinical isolates of Candida spp. were isolated and preliminarily identified by CHROMagar technology. Based on the molecular diagnosis by specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primers and Candida albicans microsatellite (CAI), 8 of 24 isolates were identified as C. albicans and the rest as non-albicans. Ribotyping of 24 isolates was performed for 7 genotypes with a universal primer pair. C. albicans was detected with the highest frequency (33%; 8/24), followed by C. famata (29%) and C. rugosa (4.2%) with the lowest frequency. We concluded that ocular candidiasis is an important disease caused by Candida spp. as it was highly prevalent among the sampled swabs (approximately 21.2%; 35/165) from conjunctivitis patients. In addition, the use of molecular markers together with affirmable diagnostic tools for Candida isolates can produce coincident results at the molecular level. The elucidation of the results showed existence of type polymorphisms of CAI microsatellite as two bands of 297 and 240 bp.

Key words: Eyes candidiasis, molecular diagnosis, rDNA typing, CAI microsatellite polymorphism, Iraq.