Clinical Microbiology: Open Access

Molecular epidemiology of Paracoccidioides species complex using tissue samples from paracoccidioidomycosis patients

Joint Event on 8^th Annual Congress on CLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY & INFECTIOUS DISEASES & 13^th World Congress on VIROLOGY, INFECTIONS AND OUTBREAKS

December 05-06, 2018 | Vancouver, Canada

Luciane Alarcao Dias-Melicio

Sao Paulo State University, Brazil

Keynote: Clin Microbiol

Abstract:

Paracoccidioidomycosis (PCM) is an important neglected tropical disease, the most important and prevalent systemic mycosis in Latin America, that until recently was believed to be caused only by Paracoccidioides brasiliensis (P. brasiliensis). In 2006, researchers described three cryptic species: S1, PS2, PS3 and later another one, PS4. In 2009, Paracoccidioides lutzii (Pb01-like) was described and now, in 2017, a new nomenclature was proposed for the different agents: P. brasiliensis (S1), P. americana (PS2), P. restrepiensis (PS3) and P. venezuelensis (PS4). These species are not uniformly distributed throughout Latin America and knowing that more than one cryptic species could coexist in some regions, we aimed to identify those species in patients??? biopsies samples for a better understanding the distribution and occurrence of these recently described species, which could lead to improvements in diagnostic and disease management. Besides, genotyping analyzes of clinical specimens from these patients that have been diagnosed and treated in our Hospital, which is a PCM study pole and located in São Paulo State mid-west region classified as a PCM endemic area, could also favor a possible correlation between genetic groups and mycological and clinical characteristics. For this, molecular techniques to differentiate Paracoccidioides species in these biopsies, such as PCR, Nested PCR and sequencing of three target genes (ITS, CHS2 and ARF) were applied. All the sequences were analyzed to testify the presence of the fungus and the phylogenetic trees were constructed showing that 100% of our positive samples are from S1 cryptic species, therefore P. brasiliensis. This is an important data, demonstrating the predominance of this species in this São Paulo State region.

Biography :

Luciane Alarcao Dias-Melicio has completed her PhD in 2005 from São Paulo State University (UNESP), Medical School of Botucatu, in the Pathology field and Postdoctoral studies from Institute of Biosciences, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Botucatu-SP. Now, she is Assistant Professor at the Dept. of Pathology, Medical School of Botucatu–UNESP and responsible for the Laboratory of Immunopathology and Infectious Agents-LIAI and the Confocal Microscopy Laboratory, both from UNIPEX-Experimental Research Unity, Sector 5, FMB. She has published 37 papers in reputed journals and has been serving as an ad-hoc reviewer from many reputed journals and development agencies.

E-mail: Dias.melicio@unesp.br