{"doi":"10.1101/2024.07.05.602241","title":"Pathogenicity is associated with population structure in a fungal pathogen of humans","abstract":"Abstract Aspergillus flavus is a clinically and agriculturally important saprotrophic fungus responsible for severe human infections and extensive crop losses. We analyzed genomic data from 250 (95 clinical and 155 environmental) A. flavus isolates from 9 countries, including 70 newly sequenced clinical isolates, to examine population and pan-genome structure and their relationship to pathogenicity. We identified five A. flavus populations, including a new population, D, corresponding to distinct clades in the genome-wide phylogeny. Strikingly, > 75% of clinical isolates were from population D. Accessory genes, including genes within biosynthetic gene clusters, were significantly more common in some populations but rare in others. Population D was enriched for genes associated with zinc ion binding, lipid metabolism, and certain types of hydrolase activity. In contrast to the major human pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus , A. flavus pathogenicity in humans is strongly associated with population structure, making it a great system for investigating how population-specific genes contribute to pathogenicity.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2024,"id":487172,"datarank":0.20794415416798362,"base_score":1.3862943611198906,"endowment":1.3862943611198906,"self_citation_contribution":0.20794415416798362,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.20794415416798362,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":3,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.7118,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":874730,"name":"Amelia E. Barber","orcid":"0000-0002-3399-1037","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":317395,"name":"Milton T. Drott","orcid":"0000-0001-9715-2200","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":256110,"name":"Thomas J. C. Sauters","orcid":"0000-0001-9524-2288","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":228020,"name":"Ana Alastruey‐Izquierdo","orcid":"0000-0001-8651-4405","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1292719,"name":"Dea Garcia‐Hermoso","orcid":"0000-0001-5288-2904","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":228030,"name":"Oliver Kurzai","orcid":"0000-0002-7277-2646","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":40922,"name":"Antonis Rokas","orcid":"0000-0002-7248-6551","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":723371,"name":"E. Anne Hatmaker","orcid":"0000-0002-7821-8160","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":119,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:08:06.013846Z","pmid":"39026826","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}