Whole-Genome Analysis Illustrates Global Clonal Population Structure of the Ubiquitous Dermatophyte Pathogen Trichophyton rubrum

Genetics: A Periodical Record of Investigations Bearing on Heredity and Variation

Diego A. Martinez^2¹  R. Blake Billmyre^3²  Jonathan M. Goldberg^2³  Gabriela F. Persinoti^1⁴  Terrance Shea^2⁵  Wenjun Li^3⁶  Aylin Döğen^3,4⁷  Sarah Young^2⁸  Qiandong Zeng^2⁹  Brian G. Oliver^5^1,10  Anna Averette^3^1,11 

[1] Broad Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142^2;Center for Infectious Disease Research, Seattle, Washington 98109^5;Department of Food Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University, Turkey^7;Department of Genetics, Ribeirão Preto Medical School, University of São Paulo, Brazil 14049-900^1;Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ege, Izmir, Turkey 35100^8;Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710^3;Department of Pharmaceutical Microbiology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Mersin, Turkey 33110^4;Division of Mycology, Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Çukurova, Adana, Turkey 01330^9;Institute of Microbiology and Hygiene, University Medicine Berlin - Charité, Germany 12203^10;School of Biological Sciences, University of Missouri–Kansas City, Missouri 64110^11;School of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Leeds, United Kingdom LS2 9JT^6

关键词: Trichophyton rubrum;    Trichophyton interdigitale;    dermatophyte;    genome sequence;    MLST;    mating;    recombination;    LysM;   

DOI  :  10.1534/genetics.117.300573

学科分类：医学（综合）

来源: Genetics Society of America

【 摘 要 】

Dermatophytes include fungal species that infect humans, as well as those that also infect other animals or only grow in the environment. The dermatophyte species Trichophyton rubrum is a frequent cause of skin infection in immunocompetent individuals. While members of the T. rubrum species complex have been further categorized based on various morphologies, their population structure and ability to undergo sexual reproduction are not well understood. In this study, we analyze a large set of T. rubrum and T. interdigitale isolates to examine mating types, evidence of mating, and genetic variation. We find that nearly all isolates of T. rubrum are of a single mating type, and that incubation with T. rubrum “morphotype” megninii isolates of the other mating type failed to induce sexual development. While the region around the mating type locus is characterized by a higher frequency of SNPs compared to other genomic regions, we find that the population is remarkably clonal, with highly conserved gene content, low levels of variation, and little evidence of recombination. These results support a model of recent transition to asexual growth when this species specialized to growth on human hosts.

【 授权许可】

CC BY