Heartiest Congratulatons to Dr. S. R. Nawange for receiving Travel Award at IX National Conference of SIHAM, Siliguri, India, 10-12 February 2012

ECMM travel awardees IX National Conference of SIHAM, Siliguri, India, 10-12 February 2012

 

--- ECMMTA-04 ENZYMATIC ACTIVITIES AND ANTIFUNGAL SUSCEPTIBILITIES OF CLINICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STRAINS OF CRYPTOCOCCUS NEOFORMANS AND C. GATTII IN CENTRAL INDIA Nawange S.R. 1, 2, Gutch R.S. 1, Singh S.M. 1 & Yadu R. 1 Medical Mycology Research Laboratory, Department Of Biological Sciences, Rani Durgavati University, Jabalpur-482001 (M.P.) India Fungal Disease Diagnostic And Research Center, 1570 Near M.H. Hospital Wright Town Jabalpur-482002 (M.P.) India In this study we first time report correlation between antifungal susceptibilities and enzymatic activities of C. neoformans and C. gattii isolates. We performed investigation of 168 environmental isolates {C. neoformans (148), and C. gattii (20)}; and 20 clinical isolates {C. neoformans (16) and C. gattii (4)}. Screening was done by using agar plate methods. Environmental isolates PL activity was found to be 83.93%; (C.n=88.65%, C.g = 11.35%) and Sap activity was 80.95% by BSA method; (C.n =88.23%, Cg =11.76%), and by gelatinase method Sap activity was 88.09%; (Cn =90.54%, Cg=9.46%). Sap activity of clinical isolates was 75%; (C.n =73.33%, C.g=26.67%) using BSA method, via gelatinase method Sap activity was 90% (C.n= 77.78%, C.g=22.22%), versus their 85% (C.n=76.47%, C.g=23.53%) of PL activity. The Pz values of different isolates ranged between 0.40-1. Higher enzymatic activities is an indicator of virulent nature of these isolates and may be responsible for higher MIC values obtained against few C. neoformans and C. gattii isolates . When comparing the difference between resistant C. neoformans, (environmental 148 strains, positive for BSA, gelatinase, phospholipase), by student‘t’ test , itraconazole showed significant difference while fluconazole and ketoconazole did not showed a significant difference (p< 0.05). Comparing the resistant C. neoformans and C. gattii (environmental and clinical) strains for the three azoles, no significant difference was observed between the three enzymatic activities. Isolates which were not enzyme producers were susceptible to all the three anti-fungals tested. Higher enzyme production seems to be linked to higher anti-fungal susceptibilities of these isolates. Correlation exists between BSA production and MIC values of environmental C. neoformans isolates for the drug ketoconazole, correlation also exists between gelatin versus itraconazole, Pearson’s correlation coefficient method was used. We conclude that further investigations is warranted on phospholipase and Sap activities and antifungal susceptibilities of Cryptococcus neoformans and C. gattii, in order to clarify their contribution to fungal virulence.