AFRICAN STRAINS OF BLASTOMYCES-DERMATITIDIS THAT DO NOT EXPRESS SURFACE ADHESIN WI-1

African strains of Blastomyces dermatitidis differ from North American strains in their growth, morphology, and clinical disease phenotype, In addition, two serotypes, designated 1 and 2, have been described, W e investigated African strains of B. dermatitidis for expression of th e surface protein adhesin WI-I and found that serotype 2 strains do no t express it because they lack the coding sequence in their genome, Th e defect will make the strains useful for gene complementation and for testing the pathogenetic role of the WI-1 adhesin.