Antigenic analysis of yeast cell-walls

[Cross reactions of eight yeasts and their importance in serological Candida diagnostic (author's transl)]

While the antigen structure of yeast cell walls is well known, the immunological cross reactivity of these is often difficult to interpret. The cross reactions of eight yeasts were tested in rabbit hyperimmune sera by the indirect immunofluorescence test. Among the eight species examined were the medically important yeasts C. albicans, C. pseudotropicalis, C. krusei, C. parapsilosis, C. tropicalis, T. glabrata, and C. guilliermondii and the apathogenic yeast S. cerevisiae. It has been shown, that there is no correlation between the number of common antigens and the degree of cross reactivity which give identical titers. Therefore it appears, that the quantitative contributions of the single antigens have an important rule, i.e., some antigens are immunogenic in one species while having only hapten characteristics in another. Further the results show that in infections with C. krusei, C. pseudotropicalis, and C. guilliermondii homologous antigens have to be used for the serological diagnosis. The testing of human sera with the yeast antigens by the same methods showed that the strikingly distributions of the Candida titer and the Saccharomyces titer were similar. A larger number of sera of healthy people and patients were compared in the hemagglutination test. These results showed that pathological C. albicans titers cannot be caused by S, cerevisiae antibodies.