Water distribution systems in Sardinian hospitals host invasive clonal lineages of the Fusarium oxysporum and Fusarium solani species complexes

ABSTRACT

Several Fusarium species cause disease on human hosts, including commonly fatal infections in immunocompromised individuals. Recently, cases of hospitalized patients affected by fusaria were reported in the Tyrrhenian Island of Sardinia, Italy. To precisely characterize the Fusarium species and haplotypes present in hospitals of the region, a multilocus DNA sequence typing (MLST) approach was applied. Water distribution systems in four departments belonging to four Sardinian hospitals were sampled. Fusarium species and sequence types (STs) were identified using MLST based on sequences of the elongation factor 1-alpha (EF-1α) gene, the nuclear ribosomal DNA intergenic spacer region (IGS rDNA), and/or a portion of the second-largest subunit of RNA polymerase (RPB2) gene. The majority of isolates obtained from Sardinian hospitals (90.7%) were identified as representatives of the Fusarium oxysporum species complex (FOSC), followed by those of the F. solani species complex (FSSC) (8.2%), and F. dimerum (1.1% of all isolates). Ten STs were found among the FOSC and FSSC, with more than 60% of the isolates identified as either FOSC ST 33 or FSSC 1 (F. petroliphilum). More than half of the FOSC isolates obtained from the water systems in all four hospitals belonged to the worldwide distributed clonal lineage ST 33. This haplotype is the most prevalent among the FOSC in different countries, being responsible for the vast majority of cases of human fusariosis.

KEYWORDS:

• Clonal lineages
• Fusarium
• immunocompromised patients
• invasive fungi
• multilocus DNA sequence typing
• nosocomial infections
• sequence types
• water quality

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors thank A. Marcello and D. Uras for their technical assistance.

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Funding

This research was funded by Regione Autonoma della Sardegna (Legge Regionale 7 agosto 2007, n. 7 “Promozione della ricerca scientifica e dell’innovazione tecnologica in Sardegna”).