Abstract
Protein electrophoresis has been of great value for the delineation of fungi taxonomy. The aim of this study was to evaluate the protein polymorphism degree among thirteen oral Candida strains belonging to six species and isolated from adult patients submitted to the Dental Hospital of Monastir (Tunisia) and suffering from denture stomatitis using sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) in order to identify the similarities in oral isolates and to establish their possible dissemination route. Proteins were extracted using two different protocols (cell wall and whole-cell proteins) and then submitted to SDS-PAGE technique. After electrophoresis, the protein bands were stained with Coomassie-blue and analyzed using the Gel Pro Analyzer (3.1). Dendrograms of each proteins gel were generated by the unweighted pair group arithmetic average (UPGMA 4.0) software package. A total of 30 major phenons (clusters) were analyzed, according to their homogeneous (species and period) and heterogeneous (distinct species and/or period) characteristics when we analyzed the cell wall proteins profiles and also 30 major phenons of whole-cell proteins patterns. The protein profile of each Candida isolate using two different methods was patient-specific and not associated with the date of isolation or the cell surface hydrophobicity (CSH) of the strain.