Fig 1.
Reconstruction of the ability to cause human disease on the Aspergillus section Fumigati phylogeny suggests that pathogenicity evolved multiple times independently in the lineage.
For the trait reconstruction inference, Biosafety Level (BSL) 2 organisms were considered pathogenic and BSL1 organisms or organisms that so far lack BSL labelling were considered non-pathogenic; these transitions to a pathogenic lifestyle (i.e., from BSL1 to BSL2) are labelled by red bars on the figure. Note that clinical isolates from humans or other mammals from a few additional species in the section have been identified [10, 28]; this handful includes relatively newly described species that some authors consider to have pathogenic potential (e.g., Aspergillus novofumigatus [29]) as well as organisms thought to be on the non-pathogenic end of the spectrum (e.g., A. fischeri [30, 31]). The phylogeny of the section was redrawn from Hubka et al. [16].
Fig 2.
Graphic illustration of the “conserved pathogenicity” and the “species-specific” pathogenicity models.