Phenotypic and genomic characterization of azole resistance in Portuguese Candida parapsilosis isolates

A phylogenomic analysis including publicly available isolates from other countries revealed that our Portuguese isolates are more closely related to those from the USA and Germany than to the isolates sequenced thus far from the neighbor country, Spain. Furthermore, although three distinct <i>C. parapsilosis</i> genetic clades were found in our dataset, all the fluconazole-resistant isolates detected in this study cluster together, raising the question of whether the increased fluconazole-resistance in the country could possibly be associated with the emergence or introduction of this particular lineage. Altogether, these results provide valuable insights on fluconazole resistance in a set of Portuguese <i>C. parapsilosis</i> isolates and their associated mechanisms, representing an important step towards a better understanding of the increasing <i>C. parapsilosis</i> fluconazole resistance in Southern Europe.