A taxonomic revision of the Wallemia sebi species complex

Sašo Jančič, Hai D. T. Nguyen, Jens Christian Frisvad, Polona Zalar, Hans-Josef Schroers, Keith A. Seifert, Nina Gunde-Cimerman

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    Abstract

    Wallemia sebi is a xerophilic food- and air-borne fungus. The name has been used for strains that prevail in cold, temperate and tropical climates. In this study, multi-locus phylogenetic analyses, using the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions, DNA replication licensing factor (MCM7), pre-rRNA processing protein (TSR1), RNA polymerase II largest subunit (RPB1), RNA polymerase II second largest subunit (RPB2) and a new marker 3´-phosphoadenosine-5´-phosphatase (HAL2), confirmed the previous hypothesis that W. sebi presents a complex of at least four species. Here, we confirm and apply the phylogenetic analyses based species hypotheses from a companion study to guide phenotypic assessment of W. sebi like strains from a wide range of substrates, climates and continents allowed the recognition of W. sebi sensu stricto and three new species described as W. mellicola, W. Canadensis, and W. tropicalis. The species differ in their conidial size, xerotolerance, halotolerance, chaotolerance, growth temperature regimes, extracellular enzyme activity profiles, and secondary metabolite patterns. A key to all currently accepted Wallemia species is provided that allow their identification on the basis of physiological, micromorphological and culture characters.
    Original languageEnglish
    Article numbere0125933
    JournalP L o S One
    Volume10
    Issue number5
    Number of pages25
    ISSN1932-6203
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2015

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    This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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