Comparison of genotypes between environmental and clinical isolates of Cryptococcus neoformans var. grubii based on microsatellite patterns.

We applied multilocus microsatellite typing (MLMT) method to investigate the genetic relation between Cryptococcus neoformans var. grubii clinical and environmental isolates in São Paulo, Brazil. This MLMT method includes three functional gene sequences of C. neoformans var. grubii, which are dispersed on three chromosomes. In all, 89 strains (36 clinical and 53 environmental isolates) were analyzed. Of 36 clinical strains, 20 belonged to a major type of MLMT-13 (55.6%). They were mainly isolated from clinical specimens. About 52.8% of strains from the environment belong to a major type of MLMT-36, which are indigenous to environments and which were not isolated from clinical samples. Thus, we recognized two genotypes that distinguish majority of clinical and environmental strains. No differences were found in antifungal susceptibility and capsule size between major environmental and clinical MLMT types.