ARS | Publication request: MEDICALLY IMPORTANT FUSARIA: A PHYLOGENETIC PERSPECTIVE

Submitted to: International Fusarium Workshop
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: January 30, 2003
Publication Date: N/A

Technical Abstract: Fusaria can cause life-threatening opportunistic infections in immunocompromised and artificially immunosuppressed humans. Unfortunately, morphological species recognition greatly underestimates the number of clinically important species of Fusarium. This problem is being addressed by the construction of a comprehensive, electronically portable multlocus Fusarium DNA sequence database, using a genealogical concordance version of phylogenetic species recognition. These ongoing studies have shown that most clinical isolates fall within one of three large species complexes: F. oxysporum, F. solani and Gibberella fujikuroi. Understanding the genetic diversity and species boundaries of all clinically important fusaria will provide valuable molecular epidemiological tools for tracing the environmental sources of these opportunistic molds, including those putatively responsible for nocosomal infections. Lastly, anti-fusarial drug susceptibility studies may also benefit from accurate knowledge of species limits and a robust phylogenetic framework. Keywords: Evolution, molecular epidemiology, nosocomal, phylogeny, species