Growth of Histoplasma capsulatum isolates is better on potato dextrose agar with chloramphenicol than on brain heart infusion agar

摘要

Histoplasma capsulatum (H. capsulatum) grows poorly on standard, non-enriched laboratory culture media. In many clinical laboratories, brain heart infusion (BHI) medium is used specifically for initial isolation of slow-growing pathogenic fungi such as H. capsulatum. We compared the growth of ten isolates of H. capsulatum on BHI medium and Potato Dextrose Agar supplemented with 500 mg/l chloramphenicol (PDA-C). After seven days of incubation, seven of ten isolates of H. capsulatum showed markedly superior growth on PDA-C compared to BHI agar. Two of ten strains showed equivalent growth on both media and one strain yielded more colonies on BHI. These preliminary results suggest that PDA-C should be considered as a replacement for BHI medium for detection of H. capsulatum from clinical samples.