title: Typing of Histoplasma capsulatum strains by fatty acid profile analysis.
abstract: The performance of fatty acid profiling for strain differentiation of Histoplasma capsulatum was assessed. Total fatty acids were isolated from the yeast-phase cells of seven stock and two previously unreported clinical strains of H. capsulatum var. capsulatum, as well as from one unreported clinical strain and one stock strain of H. capsulatum var. duboisii, and one strain of each of three other dimorphic zoopathogenic fungal species, Blastomyces dermatitidis, Paracoccidioides brasiliensis and Sporothrix schenckii. Different colony morphology and pigmentation types of the H. capsulatum strains were also included. The most frequently occurring fatty acids were oleic, palmitic, stearic and linoleic acids. There were variations in the relative percentage fatty acid contents of H. capsulatum strains that could be used for strain identification and discrimination. Differentiation between H. capsulatum strains was achieved by the comparison of detected fatty acids accompanied by principal component analysis using calculated Varimax-rotated principal component loadings. Statistical analysis yielded three major principal components that explained over 94 % of total variance in the data. All the strains of H. capsulatum var. capsulatum RFLP classes II and III were grouped into two distinct clusters: the heterogenic RFLP class I formed a large, but also well-defined group, whereas the outgroup strains of H. capsulatum var. duboisii, B. dermatitidis, P. brasiliensis and S. schenckii were shifted away. These data suggest that fatty acid profiling can be used in H. capsulatum strain classification and epidemiological studies that require strain differentiation at the intraspecies level.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zarnowski
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA.
authors.forename: Makoto
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Miyazaki
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA.
authors.forename: Agnieszka
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dobrzyn
authors.affiliation: Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA.|Department of Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA.
authors.forename: James M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Ntambi
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA.
authors.forename: Jon P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Woods
mesh_terms: D001758:Blastomyces / Q000737:chemistry; D016172:DNA Fingerprinting; D004271:DNA, Fungal / Q000235:genetics; D005227:Fatty Acids / Q000032:analysis*; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry; D006658:Histoplasma / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000145:classification* / Q000502:physiology; D006660:Histoplasmosis / Q000382:microbiology*; D006801:Humans; D016533:Mycological Typing Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D010228:Paracoccidioides / Q000737:chemistry; D010860:Pigments, Biological / Q000096:biosynthesis; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length; D013175:Sporothrix / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D004271:DNA, Fungal; D005227:Fatty Acids; D010860:Pigments, Biological