Yeast-Form Fungi from Dog Oral Cavity

Objectives: Fungus is one of the causative bacteria for opportunistic disease and has been described in a variety of domestic animals. The dog is a close companion in many human families. The purpose of this study is to isolation and identification of yeast-form fungi from dog oral cavity.

Methods: Oral samples from 38 family dogs were cultured on Brucella-blood, Sabouraud, Candida GE and CHROM agar Candida media under aerobic conditions. The distribution of the isolates against total bacteria was calculated. Gram-positive yeast-like strains were isolated and identified by biochemical using Rapid ID32C.

Results: The distribution of the yeast was 39.1% of the examined house keeping dogs. The detection ratio against total cultivable bacteria was 0.002% (0.001=0.003%). The isolates from Candida GE medium which grew well were not identified as Candida albicans by biochemical test using Rapid ID 32C identification kit. The most yeast-form fungi could grow on CHROMagar Candida medium for 5 days and formed small smooth colony. Genera Candida, Cryptococcus and Trichosporon were identified with very low percentage. However, the result by several fungus identification kits obtained that almost all isolates did not identifiy the genus and species.

Conclusion: This study suggested that yeast-form fungi between man and dog were completely different. Dog individual C. albicans was not detected.