A Substance in Blood Lethal for Candida albicans

Abstract

WHILE performing investigations on the intra-leucocytic survival of Candida, we found that Candida tropicalis survived in whole human blood but Candida albicans did not. Results were similar for cell-free plasma and serum. In these investigations, 0.1 ml. of an inoculum of 10⁷ Candida cells was added to 1 ml. of serum or plasma in siliconized tubes. The Candida-serum mixture was rotated at 37° C for 24 h. At 0, 6, and 24 h, Candida populations were determined by pour plate enumeration techniques. The serum was considered lethal for Candida if fungal census was reduced at least 10-fold at the 6- or 24-h periods when compared with the 0-h count.