Cryptococcus spp. are fungal species belonging to Tremellomycetes, Agaricomycotina, Basidiomycota, and several members are responsible for cryptococcosis, one of the most ubiquitous human mycoses. Affecting mainly immunosuppressed patients, but also immunocompetent ones, the members of this genus present a high level of genetic diversity. In this study, two mitochondrial intergenic regions, i.e. nad1-cob and cob-rps3, were tested for the intra- or interspecies discrimination and identification of strains and species of the genus Cryptococcus. Phylogenetic trees were constructed based on individual and concatenated sequences from representative pathogenic strains of the Cryptococcus neoformans/Cryptococcus gattii complex, representing serotypes and AFLP genotypes of all newly introduced species of this complex. Using both intergenic regions, as well as the concatenated dataset, the strains clustered in accordance with the new taxonomy. These results suggest that identification of Cryptococcus strains is possible by employing these mitochondrial intergenic regions using PCR amplification as a quick and effective method to elucidate genotypic and taxonomic differences. Thus, these regions may be applicable to a broad range of clinical studies, leading to a rapid recognition of the clinical profiles of patients.

中文翻译：

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线粒体基因间区域nad1-cob和cob-rps3作为隐球菌属致病成员的分子鉴定工具。

隐球菌 属于真菌菌种，属于Tremellomycetes，Agaricomycotina，Basidiomycota，几种成员与隐球菌病有关，隐球菌病是人类最普遍的真菌病之一。该属的成员主要影响免疫抑制的患者，但也影响具有免疫能力的患者，其遗传多样性高。在这项研究中，测试了两个线粒体基因间区域，即nad1-cob和cob-rps3，以进行种内或种间鉴别和鉴定隐球菌属的菌株和物种。系统发育树是基于来自新隐球菌/加氏隐球菌复合体的代表性致病株的个体和级联序列构建的，代表了该复合体所有新引入物种的血清型和AFLP基因型。使用两个基因间区域，以及连接的数据集，根据新的分类法将菌株聚类。这些结果表明，通过利用PCR扩增的线粒体基因间区域作为快速有效的方法来阐明基因型和分类学差异，可以鉴定隐球菌菌株。因此，这些区域可能适用于广泛的临床研究，从而导致对患者临床概况的快速识别。