Plasmolytic Effects of Glucose and Sucrose on Cells of Candida albicans

Abstract

Cormane and Goslings (3) reported clinical observations and in vitro experiments indicating the interaction of bacteria and Candida albicans (Robin) Berkhout to be essentially a competition, with the concentration of glucose an important factor. Their experiments, using 100 mg% and 1,000 mg% concentrations of glucose, showed no influence of the initial glucose concentration of the medium on growth during the first 6 hr of incubation; indeed, the growth curves (their FIG. 2) suggest that even after 48 hr incubation, the number of viable cells was almost identical at the two concentrations of glucose. They further stated that after 4 and 24 hr, no yeast cells staining with 0.01% methylene blue were found in the culture sediments, indicating that the sediments, and hence the cultures, did not contain dead yeast cells. The glucose concentrations used by Cormane and Goslings seemed to be exceedingly high, and their report of no dead yeast cells after 24 hr seemed unlikely. The concentrations of glucose they used raised the question of the comparative plasmolytic effect of different concentrations of glucose and of sucrose on cells of C. albicans in liquid media. The purpose of the present note is to report the results of experiments designed to determine what, if any, effect different concentrations of glucose and of sucrose had on such cells. The strain of C. albicans used for the entire range of sugar concentrations was obtained from the Microbiology Laboratory, University Hospital, O.S.U. and bore the number 1056; it had been obtained from