Fusarium musae diversity from a mitochondrial comparative perspective

Fusarium musae is a pathogenic species, previously misclassified as F. verticillioides, described in 2011 and belonging to the Fusarium fujikuroi species complex. It has the ability to infect taxonomically distant hosts: banana fruits mostly in Central and South America as well as human patients in Europe and USA. A worldwide collection of 19 F. musae strains isolated from both hosts in central America, northern America and Europe was studied. The ability of the different strains to cause infection on banana fruits and Galleria mellonella (used as “human proxy”) was verified. All strains were able to cause comparable levels of infection on both hosts. Sequencing and comparative studies of the mitochondrial genomes in F. musae led to the identification of a specific endonuclease polymorphic site that allows the distinction from F. verticillioides and that differentiate F. musae geographic subgroups. By analysing the distribution of the endonuclease polymorphism in F. musae we could potentially trace the geographic origin of the clinical infections in Europe and US. We didn’t find any correlation between the mitochondrial subgroups and their pathogenic activity on the two hosts.