Isolation of Cryptococcus neoformans and Cryptococcus gattii from trunk hollows of living trees in Buenos Aires City, Argentina.

The aim of this work was to describe the distribution of the members of the Cryptococcus species complex (Cryptococcus neoformans and C. gattii) in hollows of trees from seven parks in Buenos Aires City, to determine the serotypes and genotypes of these environmental isolates and to compare them with the ones reported in the 2001 survey. Four hundred and eighty nine samples were collected by swabbing all trees which had hollows or fissures in the seven parks studied. Each tree was sampled once during the study period and one or more isolates were recovered from each swab. Eight isolates of C. neoformans and 18 isolates of C. gattii were recovered from 15 out of 489 tree samples. C. neoformans was isolated from Tipuana tipu, Eucalyptus spp., and Phoenix sp. All isolates were serotype A and belonged to genotype VNI. C. gattii was isolated from Tipuana tipu, Cedrus deodara, Eucalyptus spp., Acacia visca, Cupresus sempervirens and Ulmus campestrus. All isolates were serotype B and genotype VGI, like both C. gattii strains isolated in 2001. On two occasions, both species were isolated from the same tree sample. These results reinforce and extend our previous findings especially about the presence of C. gattii serotype B, genotype VGI, in Argentina.