Molecular identification of Sporothrix clinical isolates in China

In this study, we investigated the molecular phylogeny of 64 clinical isolates which were identified as Sporothrix schenckii sensu lato by morphological identification. All of the strains were isolates from patients from several provinces in China. The phylogeny was inferred by DNA sequence analyses based on datasets of the ribo- somal internal transcribed spacer （ITS） and a combined ITS and partial 13-tubulin region. Reference sequences were retrieved from GenBank. Results showed that all of the isolates were clustered in a distinct clade with a type of Spo- rothrix globosa. Our analysis showed that S. globosa is the causal agent of the tested sporotrichosis in China, rather than S. schenckii that was generally believed to be the case. The existence of S. schenckii in China remains to be confirmed. This study improved our understanding of the distribution of the species in S. schenckii complex.

研究目的:明确中国地区孢子丝菌病的致病菌种。创新要点:构建中国地区临床孢子丝菌系统进化树,用分子生物学方法对致病菌种进行重新鉴定。研究方法:多基因测序和系统发育分析。重要结论:球形孢子丝菌可能为中国地区孢子丝菌病的主要病原菌,申克孢子丝菌在中国地区是否存在尚需进一步验证。