An Investigation of the Relationship between and Rabbit Diarrhoea.

is usually recognised as an inhabitant of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract in rabbits. However, large numbers of are often detected in the faeces of diarrhoeic rabbits. The relationship of with rabbit diarrhoea needs to be clearly identified. In this study, a Zhejiang strain was isolated from a New Zealand White rabbit with severe diarrhoea and then inoculated into SPF New Zealand white rabbits alone or co-inoculated with another kind of pathogen in rabbits. Our results showed that the optimal culture medium pH and temperature for this yeast were pH 4.5 and 40-42 °C, respectively. The sequence lengths of the 18S and 26S ribosomal DNA fragments were 1559 bp and 632 bp, respectively, and showed 99.8% homology with the 18S ribosomal sequence of the NRRL Y-17561 isolate from dogs and 100% homology with the 26S ribosomal sequence of DPA-CGR1 and CGDPA-GP1 isolates from rabbits and guinea pigs, respectively. In animal experiments, the Zhejiang strain was not pathogenic to healthy rabbits, even when 1 × 10 vegetative cells were used per rabbit. Surprisingly, rabbits inoculated with yeast showed a slightly better body weight gain and higher food intake. However, SPF rabbits co-inoculated with and developed more severe coccidiosis than rabbits inoculated with or alone. In addition, we surveyed the prevalence of in rabbits and found that the positive rate was 83% in Zhejiang Province. In summary, the results indicated that alone is not pathogenic to healthy rabbits, although might be an opportunistic pathogen when the digestive tract is damaged by other pathogens, such as .