| Tóm tắt: | The fungal genus Cryptococcus comprises of several diverse species. The pathogens forming Cryptococcus neo-
formans/ Cryptococcus gatti species complex are of immense clinical significance owing to the high frequency of
infections and deaths globally. Three closely related non-pathogenic species namely, Cryptococcus amylolentus,
Cryptococcus wingfieldii and Cryptococcus depauperatus are the non-pathogenic ancestral species from which
pathogenic lineages have diverged. In the current study, a comprehensive analysis of factors influencing the
codon and amino acid usage bias in six pathogenic and three non-pathogenic species was performed. Our results
revealed that though compositional bias played a crucial role, translational selection and gene expression were
the key determinants of codon usage variations. Analysis of relative dinucleotide abundance and codon context
signatures revealed strict avoidance of TpA dinucleotide across genomes. Multivariate statistical analysis based
on codon usage data resulted in discrete clustering of pathogens and non-pathogens which correlated with
previous reports on their phylogenetic distribution.
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