International Society of Human and Animal Mycology (ISHAM)-ITS reference DNA barcoding database--the quality controlled standard tool for routine identification of human and animal pathogenic fungi.
Molecular Mycology Research Laboratory, Centre for Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, Sydney Medical School-Westmead Hospital, Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Bioscurity, University of Sydney, Westmead Millennium Institute, Sydney, Australia.
Molecular Mycology Research Laboratory, Centre for Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, Sydney Medical School-Westmead Hospital, Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Bioscurity, University of Sydney, Westmead Millennium Institute, Sydney, Australia Unitat de Recerca, Hospital Joan XXIII, Institut de Investigacio Sanitaria Rovira I Virgili (IISPV), Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain.
Institut Pasteur, National Reference Center for Invasive Mycoses and Antifungals, Molecular Mycology Unit; CNRS URA3012, Paris, France.
Mycology Research Laboratory, Department of Microbiology, Medical School, the University of Athens Hellenic Collection of Pathogenic Fungi (UOA/HCPF), National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece.
CBS-KNAW, Fungal Biodiversity Centre, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences-Università degli Studi di Perugia, Perugia, Italy.
Mycology Laboratory, Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, PathWest Laboratory Medicine WA, QEII Medical Centre, Nedlands, Western Australia, Australia.
Parasitology - Mycology, APHM, CHU Timone-Adultes, Marseille, France; Aix-Marseille University, UMR MD3 IP-TPT, Marseille, France.
Unitat de Microbiologia, Facultat de Medicina i Ciències de la Salut, IISPV, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Reus, Spain.
BCCM/IHEM, Biomedical fungi and yeasts collection, Scientific Institute of Public Health, Brussels, Belgium.
Laboratório Especial de Micologia, Escola Paulista de Medicina, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
Universidade Federal de Goiás, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Laboratório de Biologia Molecular, Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil.
Centre of Molecular and Environmental Biology (CBMA), Biology Department, School of Sciences, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal.
Laboratório de Genômica e Biocomplexidade Evolutiva, Escola Paulista de Medicina, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
Instituto de Pesquisa Clínica Evandro Chagas (IPEC), Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Facultad de Medicina, Departamento de Microbiología y Parasitología (Unidad de Micología), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de México, México.
Centre for Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, Westmead Hospital, Westmead, NSW, Australia.
School of Paediatrics and Reproductive Health, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia; Robinson Institute, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia.
BDEEP-EA4547, CIIL, Institut Pasteur de Lille, CHU de Lille, Université de Lille2, Lille, France.
Unité de Parasitologie - Mycologie, Dynamyc Team, CHU Henri Mondor, AP-HP, Créteil, France.
National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
Mycology and Infectious Diseases, SA Pathology, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia.
Molecular Mycology Research Laboratory, Centre for Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, Sydney Medical School-Westmead Hospital, Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Bioscurity, University of Sydney, Westmead Millennium Institute, Sydney, Australia Centre for Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, Westmead Hospital, Westmead, NSW, Australia.
Molecular Mycology Research Laboratory, Centre for Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, Sydney Medical School-Westmead Hospital, Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Bioscurity, University of Sydney, Westmead Millennium Institute, Sydney, Australia wieland.meyer@sydney.edu.au.
Human and animal fungal pathogens are a growing threat worldwide leading to emerging infections and creating new risks for established ones. There is a growing need for a rapid and accurate identification of pathogens to enable early diagnosis and targeted antifungal therapy. Morphological and biochemical identification methods are time-consuming and require trained experts. Alternatively, molecular methods, such as DNA barcoding, a powerful and easy tool for rapid monophasic identification, offer a practical approach for species identification and less demanding in terms of taxonomical expertise. However, its wide-spread use is still limited by a lack of quality-controlled reference databases and the evolving recognition and definition of new fungal species/complexes. An international consortium of medical mycology laboratories was formed aiming to establish a quality controlled ITS database under the umbrella of the ISHAM working group on "DNA barcoding of human and animal pathogenic fungi." A new database, containing 2800 ITS sequences representing 421 fungal species, providing the medical community with a freely accessible tool at http://www.isham.org/ and http://its.mycologylab.org/ to rapidly and reliably identify most agents of mycoses, was established. The generated sequences included in the new database were used to evaluate the variation and overall utility of the ITS region for the identification of pathogenic fungi at intra-and interspecies level. The average intraspecies variation ranged from 0 to 2.25%. This highlighted selected pathogenic fungal species, such as the dermatophytes and emerging yeast, for which additional molecular methods/genetic markers are required for their reliable identification from clinical and veterinary specimens.
Keywords: DNA barcoding; ITS region; fungal identification; intraspecies/interspecies genetic diversity; reference ITS database
