The indoor mycotoxins inhalation exposure of patients (n=25) was studied using a highvolume air sampler (60 cfm x 24 h) with a micropore-paper filter (8x11 inches). The filters were evaluated for cytotoxicity caused by mycotoxins using the MTT-cell culture bioassay and by culture identification. A subset of samples was analyzed with an enzyme-immuno assay for occurrence of macrocyclic trichothe...

A gene for the Alternaria major allergen, Alt a 1, was amplified from 52 species of Alternaria and related genera, and sequence information was used for phylogenetic study. Alt a 1 gene sequences evolved 3.8 times faster and contained 3.5 times more parsimony-informative sites than glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (gpd) sequences. Analyses of Alt a 1 gene and gpd exon sequences strongly...

The Alternaria and Ulocladium species reported from humans are studied taxonomically using rDNA internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequence data. The ITS variability within the genus is relatively limited. The two most important, longicatenate species, Alternaria alternata and A. infectoria, clearly differ in their ITS domains, due to a 26-bp insert in ITS1 of the latter species. A number of tax...

It is known that many soil fungí synthesize brown, large aromatic polymers (fungal melanins), chemically related to soil humic acids (Martin and Haider, 1971; Schnitzer and Neyroud, 1975). Since the chemical constituents (or at least, their degradation products) and the physicochemical properties of fungal melanins are comparable to those of humic acids, it is possible that fungal metabolism ma...

ABSTRACT Ulocladium atrum (strain 385) consistently reduced Botrytis cinerea sporulation on necrotic fragments of strawberry leaves. On these tissues, two strains of U. atrum (isolates 18558 and 18559) showed lower antagonistic activities than the reference strain 385. Colonization of strawberry leaflets by the three U. atrum strains appeared similar in the absence of B. cinerea, whether quanti...