The presence of filamentous fungi in drinking water has become an area worthy of investigation with various studies now being published. The problems associated with fungi include blockage of water pipes, organoleptic deterioration, pathogenic fungi and mycotoxins. Fungal biofilm formation is a less developed field of study. This paper updates the topic and introduces novel methods on fungal bi...

The conidia of filamentous fungi can be easily blown into the air and tend to be contaminants in the laboratory environment. We developed a new "safety culture tube for fungi" to prevent biohazards and a procedure for collecting conidia for passage or fixing strains was proposed.

Biofilms of a municipal water distribution system were characterized to assess the occurrence of fungi within surface matrixes. Densities of filamentous fungi ranged from 4.0 to 25.2 CFU cm(-2), whereas yeast densities ranged from 0 to 8.9 CFU cm(-2). Observations by scanning electron microscopy further suggested that spores, not hyphae or vegetative cells, comprised the primary source of viabl...

Plants and filamentous fungi share with mammals enzymes responsible for DNA methylation. In these organisms, DNA methylation is associated with gene silencing and transposon control. However, plants and fungi differ from mammals in the genomic distribution, sequence specificity, and heritability of methylation. We consider the role that transposons play in establishing methylation patterns and ...

In most studies of fungal–bacterial communities in soils, single-value indices such as fumigation–extraction (FE) of microbe-derived organic carbon, measures of specific microbial cell chemical constituents, or activity-related measures have been used. These widely used single value indices, however, do not provide information on the physical structure of the filamentous fungal and bacterial co...

The fossil record of fungi and lichens is scarce. Here we report the discovery of lichen-like fossils, involving filamentous hyphae closely associated with coccoidal cyanobacteria or algae, preserved in marine phosphorite of the Doushantuo Formation (between 551 and 635 million years old) at Weng'an, South China. These fossils indicate that fungi developed symbiotic partnerships with photoautot...

A novel antifungal antibiotic, chryscandin was found in the culture broth of a strain of fungi. The producing organism was subsequently identified as Chrysosporium pannorum. The antibiotic obtained as colorless needle crystals (C20H23N7O6, MW 457) is active against Candida albicans and Gram-positive bacteria, but it is ineffective against filamentous fungi and Gram-negative bacteria. Acute toxi...

Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites produced by certain filamentous microscopic fungi, which occur naturally in the environment and may persist in animal feed. A mycotoxin contaminated diet may lead to feed refusal, poor feed conversion, diminished body weight gain and causes pathological effects associated with gross and histological changes, which are responsible for great economical losses....