Background: Fungal infections caused by human pathogenic fungi are increasing globally, especially in elderly, children, and immune-suppressed or deficient patients. Aspergillus fumigatus is one of the well-known pathogenic fungi and causes aspergillosis in the human world. However, current identification and classification methods based on its phenotypic characteristics still have limitations. Presently, molecular biological tools using their DNA sequences are used for their genotype identification and classification.
Methodology: In order to analyze genetic variations of A. fumigatus, a total of seven housekeeping genes were amplified by PCR using specific primer pairs, and multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) assay was performed with a total of 31 A. fumigatus clinical isolates.
Results: Results of the Phylogenetic tree analysis showed that all A. fumigatus strains from respiratory specimens were classified into clusters A and B, and the rest of the strains from non-respiratory specimens were classified into clusters C and D. Consequently, although the sample size was too small, genetic characteristics of A. fumigatus clinical isolates, according to their clinical isolates (origin), were very similar and well-correlated with other clinical data.
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