Abstract

Candida albicans ( C.albicans ) causes many systematic and opportunistic infection in animals, so this study aimed to investigate some virulence factors in C.albicans strains isolated from oral lesions of small ruminates. Eighty oral samples of sheep and goat were collected from local farms at Qena province (40 samples of each species), these samples were collected from apparently healthy and diseased cases for each species (20 samples for each). All samples were subjected to mycological examination. The results showed that C.albicans recovered from 20% and 10% of apparently healthy cases of sheep and goat while it recovered from diseased cases of the same species with percentage 50% and 20% respectively. Fourteen isolates out of 21 yeast isolate from sheep samples and six isolates out of 11 yeast isolate from goat samples were identified conventionally as C.albicans and confirmed by ITS1 - ITS4 primers. Als3 gene was detected in 60% and 50% of C.albicans isolates of diseased sheep and goat respectively. While Hwp1 gene was detected in one isolate of diseased goat samples only. C.albicans isolates were shown a high sensitivity to Clove oil, rather than other herbal oils.

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