Relationship between the cell surface hydrophobicity and adherence of Candida krusei and Candida albicans to epithelial and denture acrylic surfaces

C. krusei is an emerging pathogen, especially in immunocompromised hosts, and is implicated, together with Candida albicans, as an etiological agent of oral candidoses. As the cell surface hydrophobicity of these yeasts appears to be important in the pathogenesis of superficial candidoses, 20 oral isolates of C. krusei and 5 oral isolates of C. albicans were investigated using a biphasic (hydrocarbon/aqueous) separation hydrophobicity assay. All the C. krusei isolates demonstrated significantly greater hydrophobicity than the C. albicans isolates (p < 0.001). Further, there were significant intraspecies differences in cell surface hydrophobicity amongst C. krusei isolates. When hydrophobicity and adhesion to surfaces were compared using data from a previous study, there was a positive correlation between the cell surface hydrophobicity and adhesion of C. krusei isolates to HeLa surfaces (r = 0.53, p < 0.05), but not to acrylic surfaces. The current data, while confirming the inter- and intraspecies differences in cell surface hydrophobicity of Candida species, indicate that this attribute together with other cell surface features may determine the hierarchy of virulence amongst the different Candida species.