TY - JOUR
T1 - Re-examination of species limits in Aspergillus section Flavipedes using advanced species delimitation methods and description of four new species
AU - Sklenář, F.
AU - Jurjević,
AU - Houbraken, J.
AU - Kolařík, M.
AU - Arendrup, M. C.
AU - Jørgensen, K. M.
AU - Siqueira, J. P.Z.
AU - Gené, J.
AU - Yaguchi, T.
AU - Ezekiel, C. N.
AU - Silva Pereira, C.
AU - Hubka, V.
N1 - Funding Information:
The project was supported by Czech Ministry of Health (grant NU21-05-00681 ) and the Charles University Research Centre program no. 204069 . František Sklenář was supported by the project of Charles University Grant Agency ( GAUK 140520 ). We are grateful to Jan Karhan for the help with graphical adjustments of analysis outputs. We thank Milada Chudíčková and Lenka Zídková for their invaluable assistance in the laboratory. Vit Hubka is grateful for the support from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Postdoctoral Fellowships for Research in Japan (Standard). This study was partially supported by the Grant-in-aid for JSPS research fellow (No. 20F20772 ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 THE AUTHORS
PY - 2021/6
Y1 - 2021/6
N2 - Since the last revision in 2015, the taxonomy of section Flavipedes evolved rapidly along with the availability of new species delimitation techniques. This study aims to re-evaluate the species boundaries of section Flavipedes members using modern delimitation methods applied to an extended set of strains (n = 90) collected from various environments. The analysis used DNA sequences of three house-keeping genes (benA, CaM, RPB2) and consisted of two steps: application of several single-locus (GMYC, bGMYC, PTP, bPTP) and multi-locus (STACEY) species delimitation methods to sort the isolates into putative species, which were subsequently validated using DELINEATE software that was applied for the first time in fungal taxonomy. As a result, four new species are introduced, i.e. A. alboluteus, A. alboviridis, A. inusitatus and A. lanuginosus, and A. capensis is synonymized with A. iizukae. Phenotypic analyses were performed for the new species and their relatives, and the results showed that the growth parameters at different temperatures and colonies characteristics were useful for differentiation of these taxa. The revised section harbors 18 species, most of them are known from soil. However, the most common species from the section are ecologically diverse, occurring in the indoor environment (six species), clinical samples (five species), food and feed (four species), droppings (four species) and other less common substrates/environments. Due to the occurrence of section Flavipedes species in the clinical material/hospital environment, we also evaluated the susceptibility of 67 strains to six antifungals (amphotericin B, itraconazole, posaconazole, voriconazole, isavuconazole, terbinafine) using the reference EUCAST method. These results showed some potentially clinically relevant differences in susceptibility between species. For example, MICs higher than those observed for A. fumigatus wild-type were found for both triazoles and amphotericin B for A. ardalensis, A. iizukae, and A. spelaeus whereas A. lanuginosus, A. luppiae, A. movilensis, A. neoflavipes, A. olivimuriae and A. suttoniae were comparable to or more susceptible as A. fumigatus. Finally, terbinafine was in vitro active against all species except A. alboviridis.
AB - Since the last revision in 2015, the taxonomy of section Flavipedes evolved rapidly along with the availability of new species delimitation techniques. This study aims to re-evaluate the species boundaries of section Flavipedes members using modern delimitation methods applied to an extended set of strains (n = 90) collected from various environments. The analysis used DNA sequences of three house-keeping genes (benA, CaM, RPB2) and consisted of two steps: application of several single-locus (GMYC, bGMYC, PTP, bPTP) and multi-locus (STACEY) species delimitation methods to sort the isolates into putative species, which were subsequently validated using DELINEATE software that was applied for the first time in fungal taxonomy. As a result, four new species are introduced, i.e. A. alboluteus, A. alboviridis, A. inusitatus and A. lanuginosus, and A. capensis is synonymized with A. iizukae. Phenotypic analyses were performed for the new species and their relatives, and the results showed that the growth parameters at different temperatures and colonies characteristics were useful for differentiation of these taxa. The revised section harbors 18 species, most of them are known from soil. However, the most common species from the section are ecologically diverse, occurring in the indoor environment (six species), clinical samples (five species), food and feed (four species), droppings (four species) and other less common substrates/environments. Due to the occurrence of section Flavipedes species in the clinical material/hospital environment, we also evaluated the susceptibility of 67 strains to six antifungals (amphotericin B, itraconazole, posaconazole, voriconazole, isavuconazole, terbinafine) using the reference EUCAST method. These results showed some potentially clinically relevant differences in susceptibility between species. For example, MICs higher than those observed for A. fumigatus wild-type were found for both triazoles and amphotericin B for A. ardalensis, A. iizukae, and A. spelaeus whereas A. lanuginosus, A. luppiae, A. movilensis, A. neoflavipes, A. olivimuriae and A. suttoniae were comparable to or more susceptible as A. fumigatus. Finally, terbinafine was in vitro active against all species except A. alboviridis.
KW - Antifungal susceptibility testing
KW - Aspergillus flavipes
KW - Clinical fungi
KW - Indoor fungi
KW - Multigene phylogeny
KW - Soil-borne fungi
KW - Species delimitation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85113973791&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.simyco.2021.100120
DO - 10.1016/j.simyco.2021.100120
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85113973791
SN - 0166-0616
VL - 99
SP - 1
EP - 30
JO - Studies in Mycology
JF - Studies in Mycology
IS - 100120
M1 - 100120
ER -