Biol. Pharm. Bull. 30(10) 1870—1873 (2007)

mortality in compromised hosts. It is known that Candida virulence is a function of a multiplicity of factors working jointly to overcome the host defenses. Especially, studies of the pathogenic mechanisms of Candida infections have focused on dimorphism, protease production, cell growth, resistance to phagocytes, and adherence to host tissues. C. albicans is the most commonly isolated and the most medically important. The pathogenic C. albicans strains are well correlated to the adherence to mucosal epithelial cells and hydrophobicity. The hydrophobic yeast cells are capable of abundantly binding to all tissues. During the course of Candida infection studies, we initially reported that several polysaccharide fractions showed a significant protective effect against the C. albicans infection in mice. Next, we studied the changes in the antigenicity (the structure) of the cell wall mannans of several medically important Candida species cultured at several pH levels and temperatures. Recently, in order to investigate the pathogenic mechanisms of Candida infections, we reported the acid proteinase producibility by various Candida species strains and adhesion of the C. albicans NIH A-207 strain to Hela cells. In this paper, we compared the lethality to mice, the adherence to Hela cells, hydrophobicity, and cell growth under acidic conditions of various C. albicans and C. stellatoidea strains to clarify the pathogenic elements.