Molecular phylogeny and phenotypic variability of clinical and environmental strains of Aspergillus flavus

Cryptic and Rare Aspergillus Species in Brazil: Prevalence in Clinical Samples and In Vitro Susceptibility to Triazoles

“…Micromorphology observations were performed on microscopic mounts prepared in lactic acid from MEA colonies. The thermotolerance test involved assessment of the presence or absence of fungal growth at different temperatures (8).…”

“…Despite its clinical relevance and several comprehensive studies dealing with the taxonomy of Aspergillus in the last few years, the taxonomy of Aspergillus remains somewhat ill defined. For consistent species identification, analyses of morphological, physiological, and molecular characteristics are required (7,8). As this process is not suitable for routine testing by clinical microbiological laboratories, identification of Aspergillus clinical isolates at the species level has been scarcely reported (9).…”

In Vitro Antifungal Susceptibility of Clinically Relevant Species Belonging to Aspergillus Section Flavi

“…The high number of species of such a section that are potentially pathogenic for humans and their morphological similarity make it difficult to ascertain the clinical and epidemiological peculiarities of the infections they cause. In addition, cryptic species have been described within the taxon A. flavus, the most frequent infecting species (13,14). Using molecular tools, we recently identified three phylogenetic species of A. flavus causing infections in humans (14).…”

“…Using molecular tools, we recently identified three phylogenetic species of A. flavus causing infections in humans (14). Considering that the antifungal susceptibility profiles of the members of the section Flavi are not completely known, in the present study, we evaluated the in vitro activity of nine antifungal drugs against 77 isolates representative of clinically relevant species, including A. flavus (belonging to our clades I, II, and III) (14), A. oryzae (belonging to our A. oryzae group) (14), A. parasiticus, A. tamarii, and A. novoparasiticus ( Table 1).…”

“…Paecilomyces variotii ATCC 36257, Candida parapsilosis ATCC 22019, and Candida krusei ATCC 6258 were included as control organisms. The isolates were previously identified by sequencing the acetamidase (amdS) and Omethyltransferase (omtA) genes and the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of ribosomal DNA (rDNA) (14,15). Antifungal susceptibility testing was performed according to the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) M38-A2 protocol (16).…”