title: Molecular phylogenetic diversity of dermatologic and other human pathogenic fusarial isolates from hospitals in northern and central Italy.
abstract: Fifty-eight fusaria isolated from 50 Italian patients between 2004 and 2007 were subject to multilocus DNA sequence typing to characterize the spectrum of species and circulating sequence types (STs) associated with dermatological infections, especially onychomycoses and paronychia, and other fusarioses in northern and central Italy. Sequence typing revealed that the isolates were nearly evenly divided among the Fusarium solani species complex (FSSC; n = 18), the F. oxysporum species complex (FOSC; n = 20), and the Gibberella (Fusarium) fujikuroi species complex (GFSC; n = 20). The three-locus typing scheme used for members of the FSSC identified 18 novel STs distributed among six phylogenetically distinct species, yielding an index of discrimination of 1.0. Phylogenetic analysis of the FOSC two-locus data set identified nine STs, including four which were novel, and nine isolates of ST 33, the previously described widespread clonal lineage. With the inclusion of eight epidemiologically unrelated ST 33 isolates, the FOSC typing scheme scored a discrimination index of 0.787. The two-locus GFSC typing scheme, which was primarily designed to identify species, received the lowest discrimination index, with a score of 0.492. The GFSC scheme, however, was used to successfully identify 17 isolates as F. verticillioides, 2 as F. sacchari, and 1 as F. guttiforme. This is the first report that F. guttiforme causes a human mycotic infection, which was supported by detailed morphological analysis. In addition, the results of a pathogenicity experiment revealed that the human isolate of F. guttiforme was able to induce fusariosis of pineapple, heretofore its only known host.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Protezione delle Piante, Centro per la Conservazione e la Valorizzazione della Biodiversità Vegetale, and Unità di Ricerca Istituto Nazionale di Biostrutture e Biosistemi, Università degli Studi di Sassari, Sassari, Italy.
authors.forename: Quirico
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Migheli
authors.forename: Virgilio
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Balmas
authors.forename: Henry
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Harak
authors.forename: Silvana
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sanna
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Scherm
authors.forename: Takayuki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Aoki
authors.forename: Kerry
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: O'Donnell
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D044822:Biodiversity; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D016172:DNA Fingerprinting; D004271:DNA, Fungal / Q000235:genetics; D003881:Dermatomycoses / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology*; D005260:Female; D005658:Fungi / Q000145:classification* / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D006761:Hospitals; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy / Q000453:epidemiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D017720:Molecular Epidemiology; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016533:Mycological Typing Techniques; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D004271:DNA, Fungal