Abstract: Objective To evaluate the ability of BD Phoenix^TM in identification of the yeast isolated from clinical speciemen.Methods 18 strains of Candida albicans,22 strains of C.tropicalis,19 strains of C.glabrata,8 strains of C.krusei,20 strains of C.parapsilosis,4 strains of C.guilliermondii,1 strain of C.inconspicua,C.lusitaniae,C.norvegensis,C.catenulata,C.kefyr,C.haemulonii,C.rugosa respectively,3 strains of C.lipolytica,3 strains of C.pelliculosa,2 strains of Geotrichum capitatum,14 strains of Cryptococcus neoformans were tested. The total of 120 stains were all isolated from clinical specimen. They were identified by using automated Phoenix^TM 100 to test the BD Phoenix^TM. The fungus-specific universal primers ITS1 and ITS4 were used to amplify the rDNA of isolates mentioned above. The products of PCR were sequenced and analyzed, which were compared with BD Phoenix^TM as golden standard. MALDI-TOF MS were also used to identify all the tested strains.Results By using BD Phoenix^TM,1 strain of C.norvegensis,C.inconspicua,C.lipolytica,C.kefyr,C.rugosa can't be identified and 1 strain of C.catenulate,1 strain of C.krusei,2 strains of C.pelliculosa and 1 strain of C.lipolytica had the wrong results. The other results were correct. The precision of identification for BD Phoenix^TM was 92.5%. All the results were obtained in 17 hours. It took us less than 6 hours to identify C.albicans,C. tropicalis and C.parapsilosis without influence of proposed media. There was no difference between identification results of rDNA ITS sequencing and MALDI-TOF MS.Conclusions Most yeasts can be identified to the species level quickly and correctly by BD Phoenix^TM. But its ability of identifying some uncommon yeasts need to be tested.

Key words: yeast, identification, BD Phoenix^TM, DNA sequencing, MALDI-TOF MS