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Eukaryotic Cell, March 2005, p. 625-632, Vol. 4, No. 3
1535-9778/05/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/EC.4.3.625-632.2005
Copyright © 2005, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Aspergillus lentulus sp. nov., a New Sibling Species of A. fumigatus

S. Arunmozhi Balajee,1 Jennifer L. Gribskov,1 Edward Hanley,1 David Nickle,2 and Kieren A. Marr1,3*

Program in Infectious Diseases, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center,1 Department of Microbiology,2 Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington3

Received 29 November 2004/ Accepted 18 January 2005

In a prior study, we identified seven clinical isolates of an Aspergillus sp. that were slow to sporulate in multiple media and demonstrated decreased in vitro susceptibilities to multiple antifungals, including amphotericin B, itraconazole, voriconazole, and caspofungin. These isolates were initially considered to be variants of Aspergillus fumigatus because of differences in mitochondrial cytochrome b sequences and unique randomly amplified polymorphic DNA PCR patterns (S. A. Balajee, M. Weaver, A. Imhof, J. Gribskov, and K. A. Marr, Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 48: 1197-1203, 2004). The present study was performed to clarify the taxonomic status of these organisms by phylogenetic analyses based on multilocus sequence typing of five genes (the ß-tubulin gene, the rodlet A gene, the salt-responsive gene, the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene, and the internal transcribed spacer regions). Results revealed that four of the seven variant isolates clustered together in a clade very distant from A. fumigatus and distinct from other members of the A. fumigatus group. This new clade, consisting of four members, was monophyletic with strong bootstrap support when the protein-encoding regions were analyzed, indicating a new species status under the phylogenetic species concept. Phenotype studies revealed that the variant isolate has smaller conidial heads with diminutive vesicles compared to A. fumigatus and is not able to survive at 48°C. Our findings suggest the presence of a previously unrecognized, potentially drug-resistant Aspergillus species that we designate A. lentulus.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Program in Infectious Diseases, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, 1100 Fairview Ave. N., D3-100, Seattle, WA 98109. Phone: (206) 667-6702. Fax: (206) 667-4411. E-mail: kmarr{at}fhcrc.org.

Eukaryotic Cell, March 2005, p. 625-632, Vol. 4, No. 3
1535-9778/05/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/EC.4.3.625-632.2005
Copyright © 2005, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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