Abstract
Fonsecaea strains isolated from chromoblastomycosis patients in Korea and morphologically identified as Fonsecaea pedrosoi were re-evaluated for typing by sequencing the ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions. The ITS sequences of five Korean isolates and two reference strains were determined and then aligned with those of 11 related strains deposited in GenBank. In a phylogenetic tree constructed from these 18 strains, the Korean isolates and the references were clustered into two groups: Group A representing F. pedrosoi; Group B representing Fonsecaea monophora. These groups could be further divided into A1 and A2 subgroups and B1, B2 and B3 subgroups. Among five Korean strains, two isolates belonged to A1 subgroup, while one belonged to B1 subgroup and two to B2 subgroup. Despite the low numbers of Korean isolates and the small size of the Korean territory, this result indicates that the Fonsecaea strains prevalent in Korea are more diverse compared with those isolated in Japan and China. Moreover, F. monophora isolates, which had been reported to cause cutaneous infections as well as opportunistic neurotropic infections, were responsible for chromoblastomycosis in immunocompetent patients in Korea. In conclusion, ITS sequence analysis provided useful information not only for typing of Fonsecaea isolates in Korea but also regarding the geographical sources of these strains.
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