Infection and Drug Resistance (Feb 2020)
Cryptococcus neoformans/gattii Species Complexes from Pre-HIV Pandemic Era Contain Unusually High Rate of Non-Wild-Type Isolates for Amphotericin B
Abstract
Sujiraphong Pharkjaksu, 1 Piriyaporn Chongtrakool, 1 Methee Chayakulkeeree, 2 Chalermchai Mitrpant, 3 Pornpimon Angkasekwinai, 4 John E Bennett, 5 Kyung J Kwon-Chung, 5 Popchai Ngamskulrungroj 1 1Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand; 2Division of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand; 3Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand; 4Department of Medical Technology, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, Thammasat University, Pathumthani, Thailand; 5Laboratory of Clinical Immunology and Microbiology, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USACorrespondence: Popchai NgamskulrungrojDepartment of Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, 2 Wanglang Road, Siriraj, Bangkok Noi, Bangkok 10700, ThailandTel +66 2 419 7053Fax +66 2 418 4148Email [email protected]: The Cryptococcus neoformans/gattii species complexes are a leading cause of fatality among HIV-infected patients. Despite the unavailability of clinical breakpoints (CBPs) for antifungal agents, epidemiological cutoff values (ECVs) were recently proposed, and non-wild-type isolates for polyenes and azoles are being increasingly reported. However, the distributions of the susceptibility patterns for pre-HIV-era isolates have not been studied.Methods: We determined the in vitro antifungal susceptibility patterns of 233 Cryptococcus isolates, collected at the National Institutes of Health, USA, in pre-HIV pandemic era, to study minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) to the important drugs for cryptococcosis and to compare the results with strain genotypes. Amphotericin B susceptibility was compared to published ECV of C. neoformans.Results: The 233 Cryptococcus strains consisted of 89.7% C. neoformans species complex and 10.3% C. gattii species complex. Most were from clinical sources (189, 81.1%), and the major molecular type was VNI (146, 62.7%). The highest geometric mean (GM) was observed for fluconazole (GM = 0.96 μg/mL) while the lowest was for itraconazole (GM = 0.10 μg/mL). MICs to fluconazole in C. gattii species complex were significantly higher than C. neoformans species complex (p < 0.001). Moreover, C. neoformans/VNI strains showed significantly higher MICs than others such as C. neoformans/VNII to fluconazole (p < 0.0001) and C. deneoformans/VNIV to amphotericin B (p = 0.022) and fluconazole (p = 0.008). In our collection of 167 clinical C. neoformans species complex strains, 85 (50.9%), 24 (14.4%), and 3 (1.8%) strains had an amphotericin B (AMB)-MIC of 1, 2, and 4 μg/mL, respectively. The high percentage (66.9%, 79/118 strains) of non-wild-type clinical C. neoformans VNI strains, using an AMB-ECV of 0.5 μg/mL, was found. Moreover, 25 of 28 (89.3%) C. neoformans VNI strains from environmental and veterinary sources also had AMB-MICs above 0.5 μg/mL. In general, there was no significant difference in GM AMB-MIC of the clinical strains isolated from patients with (35 patients) and without (78 patients) prior AMB treatment (0.85 vs 0.76; p = 0.624). GM MIC of the environmental strains was not significantly different from that of the prior AMB-treatment strains (0.98 vs 0.76, p = 0.159) and the post-AMB-treatment strains (0.98 vs 0.85, p = 0.488).Conclusion: The high rate of non-wild-type among these otherwise naive isolates to amphotericin B is unexpected. Confirmation with more strains from a later era is needed.Keywords: Cryptococcus neoformans/gattii species complexes, pre-HIV pandemic, genotype, antifungal susceptibility, epidemiologic cutoff values, non-wild type
