1. Molecular detection of airborne Coccidioides in Tucson, Arizona.
- Author
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Chow NA, Griffin DW, Barker BM, Loparev VN, and Litvintseva AP
- Subjects
- Arizona, Coccidioides classification, Coccidioides genetics, Soil Microbiology, Air Microbiology, Coccidioides isolation & purification, Microbiological Techniques methods, Polymerase Chain Reaction methods, Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction methods
- Abstract
Environmental surveillance of the soil-dwelling fungus Coccidioides is essential for the prevention of Valley fever, a disease primarily caused by inhalation of the arthroconidia. Methods for collecting and detecting Coccidioides in soil samples are currently in use by several laboratories; however, a method utilizing current air sampling technologies has not been formally demonstrated for the capture of airborne arthroconidia. In this study, we collected air/dust samples at two sites (Site A and Site B) in the endemic region of Tucson, Arizona, and tested a variety of air samplers and membrane matrices. We then employed a single-tube nested qPCR assay for molecular detection. At both sites, numerous soil samples (n = 10 at Site A and n = 24 at Site B) were collected and Coccidioides was detected in two samples (20%) at Site A and in eight samples (33%) at Site B. Of the 25 air/dust samples collected at both sites using five different air sampling methods, we detected Coccidioides in three samples from site B. All three samples were collected using a high-volume sampler with glass-fiber filters. In this report, we describe these methods and propose the use of these air sampling and molecular detection strategies for environmental surveillance of Coccidioides., (© The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The International Society for Human and Animal Mycology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)
- Published
- 2016
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