Abstract
Background and Purpose: Candida parapsilosis is a common cause of candidemia in children and patients with onco-hematological diseases, septic arthritis, peritonitis, vaginitis, and nail and skin infections. Regarding this, the present study was condcuted to evaluate intra- and inter-species variation within beta-tubulin DNA sequence of C. parapsilosis complex in order to establish the utilization of this gene in the identification and phylogenetic analysis of the species. Materials and Methods: A total of 23 isolates representing three different species of C. parapsilosis complex were used in this study, all of which were identifed by ITS-sequencing. For the successful amplification of beta-tubulin gene, a newly designed set of pan-Candida primers was used, followed by bilaterally sequenc analysis for pairwise comparisons, determination of multiple alignments, evaluation of sequence identity levels, counting sequence difference, and construction of phylogenetic tree.
 Results: The multiple alignment of 623-629 bp-long nucleotide (nt) sequences reflecting the beta-tubulin gene indicated an inter-species divergence ranging within 0-68 nt in C. parapsilosis, C. orthopsilosis, and C. metapsilosis with a mean similarity of 84.7% among the species. Meanwhile, the intra-species differences of 0-20 and 0-6 nt were found between the strains of C. parapsilosis and C. orthopsilosis, respectively.
 The phylogenetic tree topology was characterized by a clade made up by C. parapsilosis and C. orthopsilosis, while C. metapsilosis formed a related but separate lineage.
 Conclusion: Our data provided the basis for further discoveries of the relationship between the species belonging to C. parapsilosis complex. Furthermore, the findigns of the prsent study revealed the efficiency of beta-tubulin DNA sequence data in the identification and taxonomy of C. parapsilosis and other pathogenic yeasts.
Highlights
Candida parapsilosis is a common commensal of the skin that can cause candidemia in children and onco-hematologic patients, due to its ability to adhere to vascular catheters, prosthetics devices, and the skin of health care workers [1,2,3]
The largest inter-species nucleotide difference was observed between C. metapsilosis (ATCC 96144) and C. parapsilosis clinical isolate 125 with 68 nt
Intra-species differences were found within both C. parapsilosis and C. orthopsilosis by 020 and 0-6 nt, respectively
Summary
Candida parapsilosis is a common commensal of the skin that can cause candidemia in children and onco-hematologic patients, due to its ability to adhere to vascular catheters, prosthetics devices, and the skin of health care workers [1,2,3] This species can affect the patients with septic arthritis, peritonitis, vaginitis, as well as nail and skin infections [4, 5]. The present study was condcuted to evaluate intra- and inter-species variation within beta-tubulin DNA sequence of C. parapsilosis complex in order to establish the utilization of this gene in the identification and phylogenetic analysis of the species. The findigns of the prsent study revealed the efficiency of beta-tubulin DNA sequence data in the identification and taxonomy of C. parapsilosis and other pathogenic yeasts
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