Eighty isolates originating from 71 patients comprised 50 (62.5%) from pulmonary cases, 15 (19%) from rhino-orbital-cerebral, 13 (16.2%) from cutaneous and 2 (2.5%) from disseminated mucormycosis. ITS and D1/D2 regions sequencing of the isolates identified, Rhizopus arrhizus var. delemar (n = 25), R. arrhizus var. arrhizus (n = 15), R. microsporus (n = 17), R. stolonifer (n = 3), Syncephalastrum racemosum (n = 11), Apophysomyces Acalabrutinib elegans (n = 2), A. variabilis (n = 2), Lichtheimia ramosa (n = 3)

and Mucor circinelloides f. lusitanicus (n = 2). Amplified fragment length polymorphism analysis was done to genotype Rhizopus isolates and revealed 5 clusters of R. arrhizus, which were well separated from R. microsporus. Amphotericin B was the most potent antifungal followed by posaconazole, itraconazole and isavuconazole. Etest BMN 673 in vitro and CLSI MICs of amphotericin B showed 87% agreement. Overall, the commonest underlying

condition was uncontrolled diabetes mellitus. Records of 54 patients revealed fatalities in 28 cases. Mucormycosis is a highly aggressive fungal infection caused by members of the order mucorales.[1] The incidence of disease caused by mucoralean fungi is increasing, especially in hosts with immune or metabolic impairment, e.g. in patients with uncontrolled diabetes mellitus, haematological malignancies and haematopoietic stem cell transplant.[2-7] Although the majority of infections are caused by species of the genus Rhizopus, other frequently reported genera include Mucor, Lichtheimia, Rhizomucor, Apophysomyces, Cunninghamella, Saksenaea and Syncephalastrum.[5, 8] The species of mucormycetes show significant differences in susceptibility to amphotericin

B, posaconazole, itraconazole, voriconazole and terbinafine.[9-14] Of these amphotericin B lipid formulations remain the mainstay of treatment, whereas posaconazole has been successfully used as salvage therapy.[15-17] Furthermore, the identification of the species of the mucoralean fungi are relevant for studying the epidemiology of mucormycosis in different geographical areas, especially in India, where different risk factors and aetiologic agents as compared to several other countries have been reported.[5] The routine Fludarabine price microbiology laboratories generally report the etiologic agent as zygomycete or rarely identify them up to genus level due to lack of classical mycological expertise. In the recent past sequencing of the internal transcribed-spacer (ITS) region has emerged as a reliable tool for the identification of this fungal group at a species level and could be used for DNA barcoding.[11, 18-21] So far only a few comprehensive studies using this tool had molecularly characterised clinically important mucorales and explored the possibility of specific antifungal susceptibility profiles linked to a particular phylogenetic taxon of mucorales.