FASCINATING FUNGAL FACTS FOR FRIENDS of MICROBIOLOGY
Is this a Fun GUY - or What?
Yes, but that isn’t what we had in mind.
No, you may not like them at first but after while, as you can see Fungi
grow on ya’
This is a pretty extreme
case of Athlete’s foot Oooh! Pass the Dr. Scholls. The organism responsible for this unfortunate situation goes by the Genus name of Tinea. a nondescriptor but most of us are
itchin’ to get rid of it! Superficial pathogens are the rule in fungi. Most of them cannot tolerate the high temperature at the core of animals bodies but a select group of them, are true pathogens and that means that they are able to cause systemic infection even in young, healthy, non-immunocompromised adults. You’d already know this if you were registered in Health Science Microbiology at one of our campus locations.
What is different about them? They possess Thermal Dimorphism.
Essentially, in their wild form, they look like a regular fungus.
as you can see here,
normal fungal colony morphology at room temperature, however, if
they successfully evade bodily defenses and infect someone, they
alter their morphology to a yeast-like form as you can see in the
case of these two colonial types of Histoplasma capsulatum,
Normal fungus in the picture above, and yeast like form in the picture below
In the normal
fungal or Hyphal , form they wouldn’t be capable of
easily entering the bloodstream and traveling through it, but in
their yeast form, they can. They can travel to all of the major
organs in that form and they can cause anything from mild ,
sub-clinical infection to fulminating, fatal ones.. Here in Iowa,
Histoplasmosis is a relatively common disease but fortunately is
usually assymptomatic.
Another type of fungal infection which is endemic to The Mississippi and Ohio Valley areas of the United states plus other areas in Central and South America is known as Blastomyces dermatitides which looks like this in its hyphal morphology
as seen here
from a cultural specimen and like THIS
in its yeast form like in this sample of
Sputum. The arrow points to a large rounded cell with the thick
cell wall characteristic of the species. Blastomyces also can be
a pulmonary or systemic infection and can be sub-clinical and
assymptomatic as it most commonly is, or it can be fulminating
and fatal.
Here is
another serious pathogen of fungal nature, but it is only serious
for patients who are highly immunocompromised such as is the case
with AIDS victims. This is Pneumocystis carinii which
causes the most common form of opportunistic infection in this
group and is often the actual cause of their demise.
Another type of fungus which we would all be glad to forget is
Candida albicans which is a common inhabitant of
human bodily orifaces. and our digestive tracts. Unfortunately,
it occasionally gets out of control in situations where persons
are immunocompromised or where we undergo prolonged antibiotic
therapy, or sometimes when our physiology changes temporarily
Here is a slide of Candida
albicans in a smear of vaginal exudate. It only causes
itching and blistering when present in such high numbers.
This has been only a superficial tour of the Fascinating world of Fungi. If you wish to learn more, you should Sign Up for Health Science Microbiology at one of the DMACC sites.
Bacteria - Some Interesting Bacteria and Facts About Them
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Thanks for stopping by. I’ll see you in cyberspace!