Invasive fungal infections have increased in importance, largely because of the increasing size of the population at risk. Candida species remain the fourth most important cause of hospital-acquired bloodstream infections. Infections with Candida species other than C. albicans appear to have become more common, but significant geographic variation has been reported. Invasive aspergillosis and o...

The vast repertoire of toxic fungal secondary metabolites has long been assumed to have an evolved protective role against fungivory. It still remains elusive, however, whether fungi contain these compounds as an anti-predator adaptation. We demonstrate that loss of secondary metabolites in the soil mould Aspergillus nidulans causes, under the attack of the fungivorous springtail Folsomia candi...

The purpose of this study was to describe the prevalence of respiratory symptoms and skin prick test findings in a group of 383 employees in a plant bakery population who had the greatest regular exposure to ingredient dusts. The prevalence of positive skin prick tests to fungal amylase was 16%, in contrast to 6% to wheat flour, suggesting that the principal sensitiser is fungal amylase and not...

Treatments for invasive fungal infections remain unsatisfactory. We evaluated the efficacy, tolerability, and safety of voriconazole as salvage treatment for 273 patients with refractory and intolerant-to-treatment fungal infections and as primary treatment for 28 patients with infections for which there is no approved therapy. Voriconazole was associated with satisfactory global responses in 5...

Global amphibian decline by chytridiomycosis is a major environmental disaster that has been attributed to either recent fungal spread or environmental change that promotes disease. Here, we present a population genetic comparison of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis isolates from an intensively studied region of frog decline, the Sierra Nevada of California. In support of a novel pathogen, we fin...

The largest forest pest epidemic in Canadian history caused by the mountain pine beetle (MPB) and its fungal associates has killed over 15 million hectares of forest. Sixty simple sequence repeat regions were identified from Grosmannia clavigera, an MPB associated fungus. Eight loci genotyped in 53 isolates from two populations in British Columbia, Canada revealed three to 10 alleles per locus ...

In the past two decades, European ash trees (Fraxinus spp.) have been severely damaged due to ash dieback disease, which is caused by the fungal species Hymenoscyphus fraxineus (Chalara fraxinea in the anamorphic stage). Recent molecular phylogenetic and population genetic studies have suggested that this fungus has been introduced from Asia to Europe. During a fungal survey in Korea, H. fraxin...

Recently many transposable elements have been identified and characterized in filamentous fungi, especially in species of agricultural, biotechnological and medical interest. Similar to the elements found in other eukaryotes, fungal transposons can be classified as class I elements (retrotransposons) that use RNA and reverse transcriptase and class II elements (DNA transposons) that use DNA. Th...

Diabetes mellitus is one of the main risk factors of fungal infections of oral cavity, lower part of gastrointestinal tract, skin, foot, urogenital system and blood. Mycosis is a serious diagnostic and therapeutic problem and cause of mortality in diabetes. Fungal infections are also an important problem among hemodialysis patients with diabetes or diabetic patients after pancreas or kidney tra...

White-nose syndrome, associated with the fungal skin infection geomycosis, caused regional population collapse in bats in North America. Our results, based on histopathology, show the presence of white-nose syndrome in Europe. Dermatohistopathology on two bats (Myotis myotis) found dead in March 2010 with geomycosis in the Czech Republic had characteristics resembling Geomyces destructans infec...