mSphere (Feb 2017)
The Case for Adopting the “Species Complex” Nomenclature for the Etiologic Agents of Cryptococcosis
- Kyung J. Kwon-Chung,
- John E. Bennett,
- Brian L. Wickes,
- Wieland Meyer,
- Christina A. Cuomo,
- Kurt R. Wollenburg,
- Tihana A. Bicanic,
- Elizabeth Castañeda,
- Yun C. Chang,
- Jianghan Chen,
- Massimo Cogliati,
- Françoise Dromer,
- David Ellis,
- Scott G. Filler,
- Matthew C. Fisher,
- Thomas S. Harrison,
- Steven M. Holland,
- Shigeru Kohno,
- James W. Kronstad,
- Marcia Lazera,
- Stuart M. Levitz,
- Michail S. Lionakis,
- Robin C. May,
- Popchai Ngamskulrongroj,
- Peter G. Pappas,
- John R. Perfect,
- Volker Rickerts,
- Tania C. Sorrell,
- Thomas J. Walsh,
- Peter R. Williamson,
- Jianping Xu,
- Adrian M. Zelazny,
- Arturo Casadevall
Affiliations
- Kyung J. Kwon-Chung
- Laboratory of Clinical Infectious Diseases, NIAID, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
- John E. Bennett
- Laboratory of Clinical Infectious Diseases, NIAID, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
- Brian L. Wickes
- University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas, USA
- Wieland Meyer
- Molecular Mycology Research Laboratory, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
- Christina A. Cuomo
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
- Kurt R. Wollenburg
- Office of Cyber Infrastructure and Computational Biology, NIAID, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
- Tihana A. Bicanic
- Institute of Infection and Immunity, St. George’s University of London, London, United Kingdom
- Elizabeth Castañeda
- Colombia Instituto Nacional de Salud, Bogota, Colombia
- Yun C. Chang
- Laboratory of Clinical Infectious Diseases, NIAID, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
- Jianghan Chen
- Mycology Center, Changzheng Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, China
- Massimo Cogliati
- Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche per la Salute, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy
- Françoise Dromer
- Institut Pasteur, Molecular Mycology Unit, Paris, France
- David Ellis
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
- Scott G. Filler
- Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles, California, USA
- Matthew C. Fisher
- Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
- Thomas S. Harrison
- Institute of Infection and Immunity, St. George’s University of London, London, United Kingdom
- Steven M. Holland
- Laboratory of Clinical Infectious Diseases, NIAID, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
- Shigeru Kohno
- Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan
- James W. Kronstad
- Michael Smith Laboratories, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
- Marcia Lazera
- Instituto Nacional de Infectologia Evandro Chagas, Fiocruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Stuart M. Levitz
- Department of Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA
- Michail S. Lionakis
- Laboratory of Clinical Infectious Diseases, NIAID, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
- Robin C. May
- Institute of Microbiology and Infection and School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom
- Popchai Ngamskulrongroj
- Faculty of Medicine, Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand
- Peter G. Pappas
- Division of Infectious Diseases, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA
- John R. Perfect
- Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina, USA
- Volker Rickerts
- Robert Koch Institut, Berlin, Germany
- Tania C. Sorrell
- Westmead Institute for Medical Research, Westmead, New South Wales, Australia
- Thomas J. Walsh
- Departments of Medicine, Pediatrics, and Microbiology and Immunology, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York, USA
- Peter R. Williamson
- Laboratory of Clinical Infectious Diseases, NIAID, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
- Jianping Xu
- Department of Biology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and Hainan Medical College, Haikou, Hainan, China
- Adrian M. Zelazny
- Department of Laboratory Medicine, Clinical Center, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
- Arturo Casadevall
- Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1128/mSphere.00357-16
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 2,
no. 1
Abstract
ABSTRACT Cryptococcosis is a potentially lethal disease of humans/animals caused by Cryptococcus neoformans and Cryptococcus gattii. Distinction between the two species is based on phenotypic and genotypic characteristics. Recently, it was proposed that C. neoformans be divided into two species and C. gattii into five species based on a phylogenetic analysis of 115 isolates. While this proposal adds to the knowledge about the genetic diversity and population structure of cryptococcosis agents, the published genotypes of 2,606 strains have already revealed more genetic diversity than is encompassed by seven species. Naming every clade as a separate species at this juncture will lead to continuing nomenclatural instability. In the absence of biological differences between clades and no consensus about how DNA sequence alone can delineate a species, we recommend using “Cryptococcus neoformans species complex” and “C. gattii species complex” as a practical intermediate step, rather than creating more species. This strategy recognizes genetic diversity without creating confusion.
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