BACKGROUND The largest outbreak of sporotrichosis occurred between 1938 and 1947 in the gold mines of Witwatersrand in South Africa. Here, we describe an outbreak of lymphocutaneous sporotrichosis that was investigated in a South African gold mine in 2011. METHODOLOGY Employees working at a reopened section of the mine were recruited for a descriptive cross-sectional study. Informed consent w...

The pathogenic fungus Sporothrix schenckii is the causative agent of sporotrichosis. This subcutaneous mycosis may disseminate in immunocompromised individuals and also affect several internal organs and tissues, most commonly the bone, joints and lung. Since adhesion is the first step involved with the dissemination of pathogens in the host, we have studied the interaction between S. schenckii...

The ability of pathogenic fungi to switch between a multicellular hyphal and unicellular yeast growth form is a tightly regulated process known as dimorphic switching. Dimorphic switching requires the fungus to sense and respond to the host environment and is essential for pathogenicity. This review will focus on the role of dimorphism in fungi commonly called thermally dimorphic fungi, which s...

The liver transplant patient was admitted to the hospital with hyperemic, granulomatous, ulcerated lesion in the anterior compartment of the right lower limb with report of local trauma. The agent Sporothrix schenckii was isolated from biopsy of the lesion and lymph nodes of the right lower limb. In this case, the treatment was difficult because the patient has severe pulmonary hypertension and...

The dimorphism of Sporothrix schenckii (S. schenckii) reflects a developmental switch in morphology and lifestyle that is necessary for virulence. DRK1, a hybrid histidine kinase, functions as a global regulator of dimorphism and virulence in Blastomyces dermatitidis (B. dermatitidis) and Histoplasma capsulatum (H. capsulatum). The partial cDNA se...

e3110. 3. Oliveira MME, Sampaio P, Almeida-Paes R, Pais C, Gutierrez-Galhardo MC, ZancopeOliveira RM. Rapid identification of Sporothrix species by T3B fingerprinting. J Clin Microbiol 2012; 50:2159–62. 4. Gutierrez-Galhardo MC, Silva MT, Lima MA, et al. Sporothrix schenckii meningitis in AIDS during immune reconstitution syndrome. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2010; 81:696–9. 5. Paixão AG, Gal...

The fungal genus Sporothrix (order Ophiostomatales) comprises a group of thermodimorphic pathogens that cause skin infections in humans and other mammals. Human sporotrichosis was first described in the Mid-Atlantic United States in 1898 by Schenck [1], followed shortly by reported animal infections [2]. Sporotrichosis occurs worldwide, with hyperendemic areas in Brazil, China, and South Africa...

Introduction: Sporotrichosis is the most common subcutaneous mycosis observed in Brazil and it is generally consequent to a little trauma caused by vegetal particles or spines which inoculate the fungi in the subcutaneous area. Although sporotrichosis had been frequently mentioned with armadillo hunting this form has not been widely reported in Brazil until now. In this study we report ten case...

An epidemic of sporotrichosis, a subcutaneous mycosis caused by the fungus Sporothrix schenckii, is ongoing in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in which cases of human infection are related to exposure to cats. In an attempt to demonstrate the zoonotic character of this epidemic using molecular methodology, we characterised by DNA-based typing methods 19 human and 25 animal S. schenckii isolates from th...