First isolation of Stephanoascus ciferrii from a cat.

The present study deals with the first isolation of Stephanoascus ciferrii from a cat. A 2-year-old female Persian cat weighing 2.25 kg was referred to an animal hospital with a chief complaint of otitis externa of the left ear. Microscopic examination of specimen from the left ear disclosed yeast cells. The colony of the clinical isolate was cream-colored, rough, raised and wrinkled. The microscopic examination of the clinical isolate revealed abundant branched and septated mycelia with small ramified chains of oval blastoconidia, variable in size, and arranged alongside the hyphae. Amplification of the isolate DNA with LSU rDNA primers yielded a fragment of about 570 bp, whose nucleotide sequence of the isolate showed 100% similarity to that of Stephanoascus ciferrii in the GenBank database. Therefore, the isolate was identified as Stephanoascus ciferrii, confirming the result of mycological examination by molecular analysis.