M. Tech. / Yeast such as Candida albicans are the major cause of human diseases such as genital thrush and oral thrush. Some of the genital isolates of C. albicans that were studied by Shah et al. (1991 & 1995) were found to produce the medically important immunosuppressing mycotoxin gliotoxin, which has potential important medical consequences. The biosynthesis of this mycotoxin is regulated and expressed by the presence of the gliP and gliZ genes, which were identified on the putative gene cluster of A. fumigatus. Most Candidal infections are treated using a single or a combination of antifungal agents such as amphotericin B (AmB), fluconazole, flucytosine, voriconazole, caspofungin, itraconazole, posaconazole and ketoconazole. The mode of action for these antifungal agents differs in terms of what molecule or processes are inhibited. The details of each antifungal agent and its mode of action are discussed in chapter 6 (page 54). These antifungal agents are usually recommended for the treatment of candidosis and currently the most common Candida spp. have developed resistance to these antifungal agents. The identification of Candida isolates was done using 2 different types of identification methods i.e., the chromogenic medium CHROMagar Candida and the biochemical test kit API 10 Candida. The chromogenic medium was inoculated with the Candida spp. supplied and incubated for 3 days at 37oC. The API 10C test strips were loaded with the culture suspension and incubated for 24 hours at 37oC. For the screening of gliotoxin, 2 supplemented mediums were used to cultivate the isolates that is the yeast extract sucrose (YES) and Eagles minimal essential medium (EMEM) and the isolates were grown at 37oC for 72 days. The methods that were used to identify the gliotoxin were thin layer chromatography (TLC) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to quantify the levels of gliotoxin.

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