Lodderomyces elongisporus

Lodderomyces elongisporus has been isolated from soft drinks and juice concentrates, natural fermentations of cocoa, soil, an infected fingernail, human blood infections and from baby cream.

Initially isolates appeared to be atypical forms of Candida parapsilosis, but D1/D2 sequence analysis showed that they were L. elongisporus. In view of these results, L. elongisporus may be more common among clinical isolates than initially thought (Lockhart et al., 2008; Kurtzman et al., 2011).

RG-1 organism.

Culture: Colonies (SDA) white to cream coloured, smooth, glabrous, yeast-like.

Microscopy: Ellipsoid to elongate budding blastoconidia, 2.6-6.3 x 4-7.4 µm, with occasional spherical forms present.

India ink preparation: Negative - no capsules present.

Dalmau plate culture: Abundant, much-branched pseudohyphae produced.

Ascospore formation: Asci are unconjugated, persistent, and are transformed from budding cells. Each ascus forms one, rarely two, long-ellipsoid ascospores. Ascospores were observed on V8 agar after 7-10 days at 25^oC.

Germ tube formation: Negative.

Physiological tests: (+ Positive, - Negative, v Variable, w Weak, s Slow).

Fermentation:

Key features:In the absence of ascospores, Lodderomyces elongisporus cannot be distinguished physiologically from Candida parapsilosis, C. orthopsilosis and C. metapsilosis but can be identified based on ITS sequences (Asadzadeh et al., 2009; Borman et al., 2009; Tavanti et al., 2005) and MALDI-ToF MS analysis.