Members of the Fusarium solani species complex that cause infections in both humans and plants are common in the environment

Abstract

Members of the Fusarium solani species complex (FSSC) are increasingly implicated as the causative agents of human mycoses, particularly in the expanding immunocompromised and immunosuppressed patient populations. Best known as ubiquitous plant pathogens and saprotrophs, the FSSC comprises over 45 phylogenetically distinct species distributed among three major clades. To identify which species are associated with human infections, we generated multilocus haplotypes based on four partial gene sequences from 471 isolates. Of these, 278 were from human patients, 21 were from hospital environments, and 172 were from other sources. Phylogenetic trees inferred from an ergosterol biosynthesis gene (erg-3) were highly discordant with those inferred from the three other partial gene sequences; therefore, this partition was analyzed separately. Multilocus analysis showed that isolates from humans were restricted to but spread throughout clade 3 of the FSSC phylogeny, comprising at least 18 phylogenetically distinct species. The majority (74.5%) of the clinical isolates, however, were associated with four major lineages, designated groups 1 to 4. Groups 1 and 2 were strongly supported as phylogenetic species, whereas groups 3 and 4 were not. Although isolates from ocular infections were found in all four groups, they had a significant tendency to belong to group 3 (P < 0.001). Human clinical isolates shared identical multilocus haplotypes with isolates from plants, other animals, and from hospital environments, suggesting potential nosocomiality. The major finding of this study is that FSSC-associated mycoses of humans and other animals have origins in a broad phylogenetic spectrum, indicating widespread ability to cause infection in this diverse species complex.

Diversity of Fusarium spp. associated with dry rot of potato tubers in Poland

“…1). The resulting phylogenetic relationships remained in agreement with previous studies (Du et al 2012;Kristensen et al 2005;Zhang et al 2006). The isolates of the same species were grouped together in the resulting MP tree, supporting their correct identification.…”

“…Values marked with the same letters were not significantly different from each other according to Tukey's post-hoc tests. The standard deviations are shown as the error bars analyses (Zhang et al 2006) have revealed the existence of over 45 species belonging to the FSSC that had previously been identified as F. solani due to these species' morphological similarities. A high level of diversity of the F. solani isolates was also detected in our study, supporting the idea that these isolates are members of the FSSC rather than a single species.…”

Novel Endophytic Trichoderma spp. Isolated from Healthy Coffea arabica Roots are Capable of Controlling Coffee Tracheomycosis

“…G. fujikuroi/F. solani is one of the most frequently isolated fungus from soil and plant debris, but it is also a host-specific pathogen of a number of agriculturally important plants, including pea, cucurbits, and sweet potato [28,49,50]. G. intricans/F.…”

First report of Fusarium solani species complex as a causal agent of Erythrina variegata decline and death after gall formation by Quadrastichus erythrinae on Okinawa Island, Japan

“…6) and known as the causal agent of Fusarium dieback of avocado (Eskalen et al 2012;Kasson et al 2013). The AFC belongs to FSSC clade 3, which is composed of pathologically important species of both humans and plants (Aoki et al 2014;O'Donnell et al 2008;Zhang et al 2006). Strain A was always isolated from the discolored xylem and necrotic phloem of E. variegata before tree death.…”

“…AB2, inoculated with P2-f11 and P2-f22; A2, inoculated with P2-f11; Ct2, no inoculation Table 2. We used the sequence data of F. staphyleae and 30 FSSC strains reported by Costa et al (2016), Kasson et al (2013), O'Donnell et al (2008O'Donnell et al ( , 2015 and Zhang et al (2006), which were obtained from GenBank for multiple sequence alignment using CLUSTAL W and analysis by MEGA7 (Kumar et al 2016). The phylogenetic relationship was inferred by using the maximum likelihood method based on the Jukes-Cantor model (Jukes and Cantor 1969).…”