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The antigens of three Candida albicans strains (3153 A, 3156 B and CBS 1905) and one C. tropicalis strain were studied by means of crossed-immunoaffinoelectrophoresis with the corresponding polyvalent antisera. Most antigens (from 63.8% to 77.7% depending on the strain) were bound to concanavalin A-sepharose and about 20% to blue cibacron-sepharose for all the strains tested. Free concanavalin A, wheat germ lectin-sepharose and Helix pomatia lectin-sepharose revealed differences between C. albicans 3153 A and C. albicans CBS 1905 on the one hand and C. albicans 3156 B and C. tropicalis on the other, since affinity percentages were from 4.2 to 10.2 and from 14.2 to 20.0 respectively. Among 10 previously described species-specific antigens of C. albicans, 4 were never bound and 5 were bound to concanavalin A-sepharose which was considered an unsuitable agent for antigen purification since it retained 77% of C. albicans antigens. One important species-specific antigen was bound to blue cibacron sepharose and the corresponding purification could be undertaken. Similar results were found for 12 species-specific antigens of C. tropicalis. Blue cibacron-sepharose as well as wheat germ lectin or Helix pomatia lectin-sepharose were found suitable agents for purification of some of them.

Investigations on the chemotaxis of polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMNs) towards a cytoplasmic extract of Trichophyton rubrum in the presence and absence of antifungal drugs are described. It is shown that with griseofulvin, clotrimazole, econazole, ketoconazole, miconazole and natamycin at 1 mg l(-1), the number of PMNs migrating was significantly reduced. After 3 h of exposure to 10 mg l(-1), not one of the drugs tested had any discernable effect on the viability of the PMNs, or the complement. The anti-inflammatory activity of the drugs is discussed and whilst the chemosuppression of PMN chemotaxis may be an undesirable feature in a drug used to treat systemic mycoses, it is unlikely to have any adverse effect in the therapy of the dermatophytoses.

Protoplasts were quickly and efficiently produced from both varieties of Cryptococcus neoformans and from C. laurentii by use of the multi-enzyme product Novozym 234. Conditions for regeneration of protoplasts are described. DNA yield from the Novozym-produced protoplasts was superior to that from snail gut enzyme-derived protoplasts.

Six cases of ringworm due to Microsporum canis are reported in infants no more than 30 days old. The infections came from cats. The patients responded to therapy with griseofulvin and tolnaftate, miconazole or iodine.

Growth and sterol synthesis of Aspergillus fumigatus and A. niger were studied in control cultures and in the presence of ketoconazole or itraconazole, the latter compound being 100 times more growth inhibitory than the former. Sterol synthesis is inhibited more rapidly than any visible fungal outgrowth. This inhibition results in an accumulation of 4,14 dimethyl- and 4,4',14 trimethylsterols. The presence of these membrane-disturbing sterols may result in a pertubation of membrane-bound enzyme systems such as chitin synthase.

Yeast and germ tube-forming cells of Candida albicans were compared with respect to their susceptibility to killing induced by the imidazole antifungal clotrimazole. Cultures consisting largely of germ tube-forming cells or exclusively yeast cells were prepared by incubating cells of a germ tube-proficient strain in a proline-containing phosphate buffer at 37 degrees C or 25 degrees C, respectively. When treated with clotrimazole at 37 degrees C, the cultures of germ tube cells lost colony-forming ability much more rapidly than those of yeast cells. However, this difference was diminished in the cells preincubated at 37 degrees C but prevented from forming germ tubes by 5 mM cysteine, a suppressor of germ tube formation. In another C. albicans isolate showing a very poor capacity to form germ tubes at 37 degrees C, such a difference in killing rate was much smaller than that for the germ tube-proficient strain. Furthermore, when an isogenic pair of strains, one proficient and the other deficient in germ tube formation, were compared with each other, germ tube-forming cultures of the former were found to be more sensitive than yeast cell cultures of the latter. It is inferred from these results that the germ tube-forming cell of C. albicans is more sensitive to clotrimazole-induced killing than the yeast cell.

Intravenous miconazole (90 mg daily for 3 weeks) reduced the intensity of experimental fungal keratitis due to Candida albicans in a group of 10 rabbits. Clinical scores of affected eyes were statistically significantly lower in the treated group than in a control group of 10 untreated rabbits. All cultures of corneal scrapings were negative on 18th day after inoculation in the treated group, but four cultures were still positive on the 21st day in the control animals. Histopathological examination of eyes from treated and untreated rabbits showed great differences in the severity of inflammatory changes in the two groups.