Search

BACKGROUND: Cladophialophora bantiana is a melanised mold with a pronounced tropism for the central nervous system, almost exclusively causing human brain abscesses.CASE REPORT: We describe a case of cerebral infection by this fungus in an otherwise healthy 28-year-old coal-miner. Environmental occurrence, route of entry, and incubation period of this fungus are unknown, but our case is informative in that the first symptoms occurred about eight weeks after known traumatic inoculation. Lesions were compatible with tuberculous granulomas, and the patient initially received antitubercular treatment. Melanised fungal cells were seen in a brain biopsy and abscess materials. Therapy was switched from empirical antitubercular treatment to amphotericin B (0.5mg/kg/d), but was changed to voriconazole 200mg/d, i.v. on the basis of antifungal susceptibility test results. The patient responded clinically, and gradually improved. The isolate was identified by sequencing of the Internal Transcribed Spacer domain of rDNA.CONCLUSIONS: Given the non-specific clinical manifestations of C. bantiana cerebral abscesses, clinicians and laboratory workers should suspect infections caused by C. bantiana, particularly in immunocompromised patients with a trauma history.

Scedosporiosis is associated with a mortality rate of up to 90% in patients suffering from disseminated infections. Recommended first-line treatment is voriconazole, but epidemiological cut-off values and clinical breakpoints have not been determined. Objectives: To correlate voriconazole treatment response in mice suffering from disseminated scedosporiosis with MIC values determined using CLSI broth microdilution, Etest (bioMe´rieux) and disc diffusion

Four new species of Sporidesmium complex collected on plant debris in different protected areas of the Iberian Peninsula are described and illustrated. Penzigomyces basiacutus is characterized by its obclavate to rostrate conidia with a narrowly obconic-truncate basal cell and verruculose apical cell. Sporidesmium corniculatum is distinguished from other species of the genus by its occasional furcate and only transversely septate conidia and Sporidesmium tunicatum by its obclavate to rostrate, verrucose conidia with an apical mucilaginous sheath tunica. Stanjehughesia obclavorostrata is distinguished by its obclavate to rostrate conidia with the basal cell sometimes darker than the rest.

Bactrodesmiastrum monilioides sp. nov. is described and illustrated from the twig of an unidentified plant collected in Spain. This fungus is characterized by sporodochial conidiomata with moniliform conidiophores, its conidia being solitary, broadly navicular to obovoid, mostly 2-septate, dark brown, with a black band at the septa and basal cell pale brown to brown. Analysis of the ITS region and D1/D2 domains of the LSU of rDNA sequences confirms the placement of this fungus in Bactrodesmiastrum (Sordariomycetes). Because the genus Bactrodesmiastrum was originally characterized by solitary or aggregated conidiophores reduced to a single brown monoblastic conidiogenous cell, an emended description of the genus is provided to accommodate the novel species. A key to species of Bactrodesmiastrum is provided.

Human and animal fungal pathogens are a growing threat worldwide leading to emerging infections and creating new risks for established ones. There is a growing need for a rapid and accurate identification of pathogens to enable early diagnosis and targeted antifungal therapy. Morphological and biochemical identification methods are time-consuming and require trained experts. Alternatively, molecular methods, such as DNA barcoding, a powerful and easy tool for rapid monophasic identification, offer a practical approach for species identification and less demanding in terms of taxonomical expertise. However, its wide-spread use is still limited by a lack of quality-controlled reference databases and the evolving recognition and definition of new fungal species/complexes. An international consortium of medical mycology laboratories was formed aiming to establish a quality controlled ITS database under the umbrella of the ISHAM working group on “DNA barcoding of human and animal pathogenic fungi.” A new database, containing 2800 ITS sequences representing 421 fungal species, providing the medical community with a freely accessible tool at http://www.isham.org/ and http://its.mycologylab.org/ to rapidly and reliably identify most agents of mycoses, was established. The generated sequences included in the new database were used to evaluate the variation and overall utility of the ITS region for the identification of pathogenic fungi at intra-and interspecies level. The average intraspecies variation ranged from 0 to 2.25%. This highlighted selected pathogenic fungal species, such as the dermatophytes and emerging yeast, for which additional molecular methods/genetic markers are required for their reliable identification from clinical and veterinary specimens.

Recent changes in the Fungal Code of Nomenclature and developments in molecular phylogeny are about to lead to dramatic changes in the naming of medically important molds and yeasts. In this article, we present a widely supported and simple proposal to prevent unnecessary nomenclatural instability.

Subcutaneous mycoses in freshwater fish are rare infections usually caused by oomycetes of the genus Saprolegnia and some filamentous fungi. To date, Fusarium infections in farmed fish have only been described in marine fish. Here, we report the presence of Fusarium oxysporum in subcutaneous lesions of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus). Histopathologic evaluation revealed granuloma formation with fungal structures, and the identity of the etiological agent was demonstrated by morphological and molecular analyses. Some of the animals died as a result of systemic coinfection with Aeromonashydrophila.

There are very few drug delivery systems that target key organs via the oral route, as oral delivery advances normally address gastrointestinal drug dissolution, permeation, and stability. Here we introduce a nanomedicine in which nanoparticles, while also protecting the drug from gastric degradation, are taken up by the gastrointestinal epithelia and transported to the lung, liver, and spleen, thus selectively enhancing drug bioavailability in these target organs and diminishing kidney exposure (relevant to nephrotoxic drugs). Our work demonstrates, for the first time, that oral particle uptake and translocation to specific organs may be used to achieve a beneficial therapeutic response. We have illustrated this using amphotericin B, a nephrotoxic drug encapsulated within N-palmitoyl-N-methyl-N,N-dimethyl-N,N,N-trimethyl-6-O-glycol chitosan (GCPQ) nanoparticles, and have evidenced our approach in three separate disease states (visceral leishmaniasis, candidiasis, and aspergillosis) using industry standard models of the disease in small animals. The oral bioavailability of AmB-GCPQ nanoparticles is 24%. In all disease models, AmB-GCPQ nanoparticles show comparable efficacy to parenteral liposomal AmB (AmBisome). Our work thus paves the way for others to use nanoparticles to achieve a specific targeted delivery of drug to key organs via the oral route. This is especially important for drugs with a narrow therapeutic index.

Bactrodesmiastrum monilioides sp. nov. is described and illustrated from the twig of an unidentified plant collected in Spain. This fungus is characterized by sporodochial conidiomata with moniliform conidiophores, its conidia being solitary, broadly navicular to obovoid, mostly 2-septate, dark brown, with a black band at the septa and basal cell pale brown to brown. Analysis of the ITS region and D1/D2 domains of the LSU of rDNA sequences confirms the placement of this fungus in Bactrodesmiastrum (Sordariomycetes). Because the genus Bactrodesmiastrum was originally characterized by solitary or aggregated conidiophores reduced to a single brown monoblastic conidiogenous cell, an emended description of the genus is provided to accommodate the novel species. A key to species of Bactrodesmiastrum is provided