Aspergillus tubingensis: a major filamentous fungus found in the airways ă of patients with lung disease

International audienceThe black Aspergillus group comprises A. niger and 18 other species, ă which are morphologically indistinguishable. Among this species subset, ă A. tubingensis, described in less than 30 human cases before 2014, is ă primarily isolated from ear, nose, and throat samples. Recently, ă matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass ă spectrometry has emerged as a powerful technique to identify microbes in ă diagnostic settings. We applied thismethod to identify 1,720 filamentous ă fungi routinely isolated from clinical samples our laboratory over a ă two-year study period. Accordingly, we found 85 isolates of A. niger, 58 ă of A. tubingensis, and six other black Aspergillus (4 A. carbonarius and ă 2 A. japonicus). A. tubingensis was the fifth most frequent mold ă isolated in our mycology laboratory, primarily isolated from respiratory ă samples (40/58 isolates). In this study, we mainly aimed to describe the ă clinical pattern of Aspergillus tubingensis. ă We analyzed the clinical features of the patients in whom A. tubingensis ă had been isolated from 40 respiratory samples. Thirty patients suffered ă from cystic fibrosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or other ă types of chronic respiratory failure. Strikingly, 20 patients were ă experiencing respiratory acute exacerbation at the time the sample was ă collected. Antifungal susceptibility testing of 36 A. tubingensis ă isolates showed lower amphotericin B MICs (P < 10(-4)) and higher ă itraconazole and voriconazole MICs (P < 10(-4) and P = .0331, ă respectively) compared with 36 A. niger isolates. Further studies are ă required to better establish the role that this fungus plays in human ă diseases, especially in the context of cystic fibrosis and chronic ă pulmonary diseases