Adansonian study of Candida albicans: intraspecific homogeneity excepting C. stellatoidea strains.

Fifty-six strains of Candida albicans (40 fresh human isolates, 10 laboratory strains, and 6 Candida stellatoidea strains), seven strains of other Candida species, and one strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae were examined for a total of 182 biochemical and physiological characters. As 121 characters proved positive or negative in all of the strains, analysis of similarity values (simple matching coefficients) derived from the remaining 61 characters revealed that C. albicans strains could be discriminated from other species with similarity values of 70% or lower, and that the cluster of C. albicans strains with internal similarity values above 70% could be divided into two subclusters representing classical C. albicans and C. stellatoidea, with intergroup similarity of 70 to 85% and intragroup similarities of 85% or higher. No discernible difference was noted between isolates from pathological specimens and those from healthy individuals.