title: Genotypes of Clinical and Environmental Isolates of Cryptococcus neoformans and Cryptococcus gattii in Korea.
abstract: Multilocus sequence typing analysis was applied to determine the genotypes of 147 (137 clinical and 10 environmental) Cryptococcus neoformans and three clinical Cryptococcus gattii isolates from 1993 to 2014 in Korea. Among the 137 clinical isolates of C. neoformans, the most prevalent genotype was ST5 (n = 131), followed by ST31 (n = 5) and ST127 (n = 1). Three C. gattii strains were identified as ST57, ST7, and ST113. All environmental isolates were identified as C. neoformans with two genotypes, ST5 (n = 7) and ST31 (n = 3). Our results show that C. neoformans isolates in Korea are genetically homogeneous, and represent a close genetic relationship between clinical and environmental isolates.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Laboratory Science, Catholic University of Pusan, Busan 46252, Korea.
authors.forename: So Hae
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Laboratory Science, Catholic University of Pusan, Busan 46252, Korea.
authors.forename: Seok Cheol
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.affiliation: Department of Laboratory Medicine and Research Institute of Bacterial Resistance, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul 03722, Korea.
authors.forename: Kyung Won
authors.initials: KW
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Laboratory Medicine, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul 03080, Korea.
authors.forename: Mi-Na
authors.initials: MN
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Laboratory Science, Catholic University of Pusan, Busan 46252, Korea.
authors.forename: Soo Myung
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Hwang
keywords: Cryptococcus gattii; Cryptococcus neoformans; Genotype; Multilocus sequence typing