Diversity of clinical isolates of Aspergillus terreus in antifungal susceptibilities, genotypes and virulence in Galleria mellonella model: Comparison between respiratory and ear isolates.

We analyzed the antifungal susceptibility profiles, genotypes, and virulence of clinical Aspergillus terreus isolates from six university hospitals in South Korea. Thirty one isolates of A. terreus, comprising 15 respiratory and 16 ear isolates were assessed. Microsatellite genotyping was performed, and genetic similarity was assessed by calculating the Jaccard index. Virulence was evaluated by Galleria mellonella survival assay. All 31 isolates were susceptible to itraconazole, posaconazole, and voriconazole, while 23 (74.2%) and 6 (19.4%) showed amphotericin B (AMB) minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of ≤ 1 mg/L and > 4 mg/L, respectively. Notably, respiratory isolates showed significantly higher geometric mean MICs than ear isolates to AMB (2.41 vs. 0.48 mg/L), itraconazole (0.40 vs. 0.19 mg/L), posaconazole (0.16 vs. 0.08 mg/L), and voriconazole (0.76 vs. 0.31 mg/L) (all, P