Spatial differentiation of gene expression in Aspergillus niger colony grown for sugar beet pulp utilization.

Degradation of plant biomass to fermentable sugars is of critical importance for the use of plant materials for biofuels. Filamentous fungi are ubiquitous organisms and major plant biomass degraders. Single colonies of some fungal species can colonize massive areas as large as five soccer stadia.

Diagnosis of Infections: Approaches to Identification by the Clinical Mycology Laboratory.

Infections caused by the genus have emerged over the past decades and range from onychomycosis and keratitis in healthy individuals to deep and disseminated infections with high mortality rates in immune-compromised patients. As antifungal susceptibility can differ between the different species, identification at species level is recommended. Several clinical observations as hyaline hyphae in tissue, necrotic lesions in the skin and positive blood tests with fungal growth or presence of fungal cell wall components may be the first hints for fusariosis.

Epidemiological changes in tinea capitis over the sixty years of economic growth in China.

Background: Tinea capitis is a fungal infection of the scalp occurring commonly in children. Historical data indicate that clinical manifestations and the spectrum of etiologic agents vary greatly with geography, as well as socioeconomic affected populations.

Objective: To study the possible connection between socioeconomic status, the disease patterns and the variability of etiological agents.

Accumulation of recalcitrant xylan in mushroom-compost is due to a lack of xylan substituent removing enzyme activities of Agaricus bisporus.

The ability of Agaricus bisporus to degrade xylan in wheat straw based compost during mushroom formation is unclear. In this paper, xylan was extracted from the compost with water, 1M and 4M alkali. Over the phases analyzed, the remaining xylan was increasingly substituted with (4-O-methyl-)glucuronic acid and arabinosyl residues, both one and two arabinosyl residues per xylosyl residue remained.

Separate effects of moisture content and water activity on the hyphal extension of Penicillium rubens on porous media.

To prevent indoor fungal growth, understanding the moisture relations of fungi is a key element. Indoor moisture is quantified by the relative humidity (RH). RH controls the water activity of the indoor materials that fungi grow on, a well-studied parameter known to limit fungal growth.

Application of Isothermal Amplification Techniques for Identification of Madurella mycetomatis, the Prevalent Agent of Human Mycetoma.

Appropriate diagnosis and treatment of eumycetoma may vary significantly depending on the causative agent. To date, the most common fungus causing mycetoma worldwide is Madurella mycetomatis. This species fails to express any recognizable morphological characteristics, and reliable identification can therefore only be achieved with the application of molecular techniques.

Fungal Planet description sheets: 320-370.

Novel species of fungi described in the present study include the following from Malaysia: Castanediella eucalypti from Eucalyptus pellita, Codinaea acacia from Acacia mangium, Emarcea eucalyptigena from Eucalyptus brassiana, Myrtapenidiella eucalyptorum from Eucalyptus pellita, Pilidiella eucalyptigena from Eucalyptus brassiana and Strelitziana malaysiana from Acacia mangium. Furthermore, Stachybotrys sansevieriicola is described from Sansevieria ehrenbergii (Tanzania), Phacidium grevilleae from Grevillea robusta (Uganda), Graphium jumulu from Adansonia gregorii and Ophiostoma eucalyptigena from Eucalyptus marginata (Australia), Pleurophoma ossicola from bone and Plectosphaerella populi from Populus nigra (Germany), Colletotrichum neosansevieriae from Sansevieria trifasciata, Elsinoë othonnae from Othonna quinquedentata and Zeloasperisporium cliviae (Zeloasperisporiaceae fam. nov.

Caulicolous Botryosphaeriales from Thailand.

Members of Botryosphaeriales are commonly encountered as endophytes or pathogens of various plant hosts. The Botryosphaeriaceae represents the predominant family within this order, containing numerous species associated with canker and dieback disease on a wide range of woody hosts. During the course of routine surveys from various plant hosts in Thailand, numerous isolates of Botryosphaeriaceae, including Aplosporellaceae were collected.

Application of the consolidated species concept to Cercospora spp. from Iran.

The genus Cercospora includes many important plant pathogenic fungi associated with leaf spot diseases on a wide range of hosts. The mainland of Iran covers various climatic regions with a great biodiversity of vascular plants, and a correspondingly high diversity of cercosporoid fungi. However, most of the cercosporoid species found to date have been identified on the basis of morphological characteristics and there are no cultures that support these identifications.

Elucidating the Ramularia eucalypti species complex.

The genus Ramularia includes numerous phytopathogenic species, several of which are economically important. Ramularia eucalypti is currently the only species of this genus known to infect Eucalyptus by causing severe leaf-spotting symptoms on this host. However, several isolates identified as R.

Phytopythium: molecular phylogeny and systematics.

The genus Phytopythium (Peronosporales) has been described, but a complete circumscription has not yet been presented. In the present paper we provide molecular-based evidence that members of Pythium clade K as described by Lévesque & de Cock (2004) belong to Phytopythium. Maximum likelihood and Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of the nuclear ribosomal DNA (LSU and SSU) and mitochondrial DNA cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (COI) as well as statistical analyses of pairwise distances strongly support the status of Phytopythium as a separate phylogenetic entity.

Phylogeny of Sarocladium (Hypocreales).

The circumscription of the genus Acremonium (Hypocreales) was recently reviewed on the basis of a DNA phylogenetic study. Several species were subsequently transferred to Sarocladium, but the relationships between both genera remained unresolved. Based on multilocus phylogenetic inferences combined with phenotypic data, we have revised the species concepts within Sarocladium and some genetically related species of Acremonium.

In Vitro Activities of Eight Antifungal Drugs against a Global Collection of Genotyped Exserohilum Isolates.

The in vitro susceptibilities of 24 worldwide Exserohilum isolates belonging to 10 species from human and environmental sources were determined for eight antifungal drugs. The strains were characterized by internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequencing and amplified fragment length polymorphism fingerprinting. Posaconazole had the lowest geometric mean MIC (0.

Compost Grown Agaricus bisporus Lacks the Ability to Degrade and Consume Highly Substituted Xylan Fragments.

The fungus Agaricus bisporus is commercially grown for the production of edible mushrooms. This cultivation occurs on compost, but not all of this substrate is consumed by the fungus. To determine why certain fractions remain unused, carbohydrate degrading enzymes, water-extracted from mushroom-grown compost at different stages of mycelium growth and fruiting body formation, were analyzed for their ability to degrade a range of polysaccharides.

Closely related fungi employ diverse enzymatic strategies to degrade plant biomass.

Background: Plant biomass is the major substrate for the production of biofuels and biochemicals, as well as food, textiles and other products. It is also the major carbon source for many fungi and enzymes of these fungi are essential for the depolymerization of plant polysaccharides in industrial processes. This is a highly complex process that involves a large number of extracellular enzymes as well as non-hydrolytic proteins, whose production in fungi is controlled by a set of transcriptional regulators.

The Genera of Fungi - fixing the application of the type species of generic names - G 2: Allantophomopsis, Latorua, Macrodiplodiopsis, Macrohilum, Milospium, Protostegia, Pyricularia, Robillarda, Rotula, Septoriella, Torula, and Wojnowicia.

The present paper represents the second contribution in the Genera of Fungi series, linking type species of fungal genera to their morphology and DNA sequence data, and where possible, ecology. This paper focuses on 12 genera of microfungi, 11 of which the type species are neo- or epitypified here: Allantophomopsis (A. cytisporea, Phacidiaceae, Phacidiales, Leotiomycetes), Latorua gen.

Human sporotrichosis beyond the epidemic front reveals classical transmission types in Espírito Santo, Brazil.

Sporotrichosis has emerged as the main subcutaneous mycosis of humans and animals around the world. With particular differences in frequency, the major species includes Sporothrix brasiliensis, S. schenckii, S.

Phaeohyphomycosis Caused by a Novel Species, Pseudochaetosphaeronema martinelli.

Among the opportunistic mycoses that are emerging in patients with immunosuppression or severe underlying illness, many isolates lack of characteristic sporulation and until recently could not be identified. Clinical signs are mostly nonspecific and therefore such infections have often been disregarded. In the present paper we describe a novel, nonsporulating fungal species causing subcutaneous phaeohyphomycosis in two patients of different origin.

The interaction of induction and repression mechanisms in the regulation of galacturonic acid-induced genes in Aspergillus niger.

Aspergillus niger is an important industrial fungus expressing a broad spectrum of pectinolytic genes. The main constituent of pectin, polygalacturonic acid (PGA), is degraded into galacturonic acid (GA) by the combined activity of endo- and exo-polygalacturonases some of which are specifically induced by GA. The regulatory mechanisms that control the expression of genes encoding PGA-degrading enzymes are not well understood.

Uncovering the abilities of Agaricus bisporus to degrade plant biomass throughout its life cycle.

The economically important edible basidiomycete mushroom Agaricus bisporus thrives on decaying plant material in forests and grasslands of North America and Europe. It degrades forest litter and contributes to global carbon recycling, depolymerizing (hemi-)cellulose and lignin in plant biomass. Relatively little is known about how A.

Disseminated infection caused by Emmonsia pasteuriana in a renal transplant recipient.

Emmonsia pasteuriana is a thermally dimorphic fungus identified in very few human cases. Here, we report a case of a 43-year-old male renal transplant patient from China presenting with multiple painful skin eruptions on his head, nose and left thigh, later accompanied by respiratory failure. Histopathology of the biopsy collected from the left thigh upper ulcer and occipital nodule both demonstrated chronic inflammation with granuloma formation and yeast-like elements.

The influence of pretreatment methods on saccharification of sugarcane bagasse by an enzyme extract from Chrysoporthe cubensis and commercial cocktails: A comparative study.

Biomass enzymatic hydrolysis depends on the pretreatment methods employed, the composition of initial feedstock and the enzyme cocktail used to release sugars for subsequent fermentation into ethanol. In this study, sugarcane bagasse was pretreated with 1% H2SO4 and 1% NaOH and the biomass saccharification was performed with 8% solids loading using 10 FPase units/g of bagasse of the enzymatic extract from Chrysoporthe cubensis and three commercial cocktails for a comparative study. Overall, the best glucose and xylose release was obtained from alkaline pretreated sugarcane bagasse.

Three New Species of the Genus Ochroconis.

Ochroconis bacilliformis, O. phaeophora and O. robusta, three novel species of the melanized genus Ochroconis (Sympoventuriaceae, Venturiales), are described, illustrated and distinguished phenotypically and molecularly from previously described species in the genus Ochroconis.

Fonsecaea pugnacius, a Novel Agent of Disseminated Chromoblastomycosis.

We report a fatal case of a chromoblastomycosis-like infection caused by a novel species of Fonsecaea in a 52-year-old immunocompetent Caucasian male from an area of chromoblastomycosis endemicity in Brazil. The patient had a 30-year history of slowly evolving, verrucous lesions on the right upper arm which gradually affected the entire arm, the left hemifacial area, and the nose. Subsequent dissemination to the brain was observed, which led to death of the patient.

Identifying and naming plant-pathogenic fungi: past, present, and future.

Scientific names are crucial in communicating knowledge about fungi. In plant pathology, they link information regarding the biology, host range, distribution, and potential risk. Our understanding of fungal biodiversity and fungal systematics has undergone an exponential leap, incorporating genomics, web-based systems, and DNA data for rapid identification to link species to metadata.