Dr.

Ensieh Lotfali

AssistantProfessorof Medical Mycology

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 During last decades considerable increase in fungal infection
occurred due to the host related condition including

 Immune suppression

 Chemotherapies

 Corticosteroids

 Medical invasive methods

 Long time rest at hospital

Therefore an important part of medical studies and researches focus on

fungi.
It is estimated that over 800 millions people globally
suffer from IFIs and annual death due to IFIs
(1,660,000) is comparable to malaria (445,000) or to
tuberculosis (1,700,000).

Invasive Fungal Infections (IFIs)

 Introduction to Mycology

 As of 2020, around 148,000 species of fungi have been

described by taxonomists, but the global biodiversity of the
fungus kingdom is not fully understood. It was estimated that
more than 90% of fungi remain unknown.

• Only a small proportion of these being capable of eliciting

disease in immunoc ompetent hosts.

• The remainders are only able to produce disease in hosts that

are debilitated or immunocompromised.
 Fungi (plural from fungus) are the organisms
characterized by following introductions:

 Cell wall included

 Uni-cellular (yeast) or multi-cellular (molds)

 Eukaryotic cells (with an organized nucleous)

 Hetrotrophic (disable to produce basic materials)

 Without chlorophill and chloroplast and no sensitive to

antibiotics.
 Cell Structure

• Cell wall

• Cell membrane

• Cytoplasmic organelles

• Organized nucleus

• Microtubules

• Additional extracellular
structural components
(such as capsules).
 The Fungal Cell Wall
• The cell wall represents a dynamically forming exoskeleton that protects the
fungal protoplast from the external environment and defines directional growth,
cellular strength, shape and interactive properties.
• Containing 15-30% of body mass, includes:
 1. Polysaccharides (70-80%) such as: chitin, glucans, mannan,
galactan.
 Chitin is structural unites of cell wall.
 Glucans are two type: α-glucan and b-glucan.
 Shifting the fungal types, mold to yeast depends on increasing the
amount of α-glucan and b-glucan in the cell wall

 2. Proteins (10-15%) which have structural and metabolic functions

including: Extra cellular protease and other enzymes.

 3. Lipid gives a lipophilic characteristic to fungal cells in fluids.

 Cell Membrane
Fungal cytoplasm membrane (the inner layer of envelope) have
a unique sterol, ergosterol, which
replaces cholesterol found in mammalian cell membranes.

Biosynthesis and metabolism of ergosterol are

targeted by the some antifungal drugs.
 Cytoplasm
 Fungal cytoplasm including organelles commonly found
in eukaryotic cells such as:
 Reticulum endoplasmic, Vacuoles, Microfilaments,
Mitochondria, Nucleus.
 Fungi don’t have any chloroplast so they cannot perform
photosynthesis.
 Growth Condition for Fungi

1. The temperature range for fungal growth is quite wide; but,

generally, most species grow very well around 25 °C.

 Low-temperature psyc hrophilic fungi and high-

temperature thermophilic fungi do, however, exist in nature.
 Asp. fumigatus is the most frequently found thermophilic fungus.
It is able to grow at 55°C and can survive temperatures of up to 75°C.

2. Water is absolutely essential for fungal metabolism, and any

external conditions which result in reduced water availability to
cells (i.e. ‘water stress’) will adversely affect cell physiology.
3. pH is a significant parameter affecting on the growth.

The optimum range of the human interested fungi is 5.6-6.8.

4. Humidity is a very critical factor for the growth. The optimum

range is 75% -85%.

5. Light does not play a major part in growth but for the
reproductive processes, a cycle of light and darkness is
necessary.
 The nutrient requirement of fungi
1. Carbon

2. Nitrogen

 Fungi are heterotrophic: they rely solely on carbon obtained from other
organisms for their metabolism and nutrition.

 Fungi have evolved in a way that allows many of them to use a large variety
of organic substrates for growth, including simple compounds such as nitrate,
ammonia, ac etate, or ethanol.
Aerobic or facultative anaerobic

 In terms of oxygen requirements, most fungi

are aerobes and are often microaerophilic
(preferring an oxygen tension below that of
normal atmospheric).

 Although yeasts like S.cerevisiae are

sometimes referred to as facultative
anaerobes.
 Hetrotrophic
Type of Nutrition for Fungi
disable to produce basic materials)

Saprophytic nutrition

They feed on dead plant and animal material

obtain essential compounds by the degradation
and decomposition of material in nature.

Parasitic nutrition

They feed off a living host.

Most fungi store their food as glycogen.

 Source of fungal infections

 Endogenous
Growing or developing from within; originating within an organism.
Candida
Geotrichum

 Exogenous
Developing or originating outside an organism.
Histoplasma capsulatum
Cryptococcus neoformans

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 Edible
mushrooms
Macroscopic
Toxic mushrooms
Forms of fungi

,Toadstools
Septate hyphae
Unicellular
(Yeasts)
Microscopic Aseptate hyphae
Multicellular
(Mold)
Hyaline Fungi

Dematiaceous
Fungi

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 Morphology:
1. Yeast (unicellular)

Filamentous /mold
2.
Macrofungi and Microfungi
Multicellular

3. Dimorphic Mushrooms Molds

•
Most fungi are Multicellular
and some are unicellular
 Yeasts
 Unicellular
Yeasts are unicellular fungi, spherule or oval structure that divide
asexually by budding or fission and whose individual cell size can
vary widely from 2-3 μm to 20–50 μm in length and 1–10 μm in width.
 Colony morphology
Yeasts

They appear as small, creamy or white colonies.

On brain heart infusion agar (BHI) or fungal media, such as Saboraud's
dextrose agar (SDA) or Mycosel, yeast typically have a smooth (glabrous)
texture and are larger than bacterial colonies on the same medium.
• Yeast c an form pseudohyphae.

• They are the result of a sort of incomplete budding where the

cells elongate but remain attac hed after division.

• Some yeasts can also form true septate hyphae.

Candida albicans:

Pseudohyphal: Chains of budding

yeast cells which have elongated
without detac hment.

Hyphal: Branched or unbranched

filamentous cells
 Molds

Filamentous fungi
 Hypha (pl. Hyphae)

The filaments of a mold may be

coenocytic (no cross walls) or have
septa (c ross walls).

Internal cross-walls called "septa" (singular septum)

• In the septa, there are usually large pores for the flow of ribosomes,
mitochondria, and sometimes nuclei between cells.
Hyaline
Aspergillus
Scopulariopsis

Hyaline molds are fungi that grow

predominantly in a filamentous form with
colourless hyphae.

Dematiaceous (Pigmented)
Alternaria
Cladosporium

The dematiaceous (brown-pigmented) fungi

are a large and heterogenous group of molds.
 Colony morphology
Molds

The colony morphology would be described as

the following: on Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA)
filamentous, raised, filiform, various sizes,
matte/rough surface, opaque, and white edges
with color center.
They can change in color, shape, and colony
size.
 Fungal growth

 Hyphae
The common vegetative shape of molds.

 Mycellium
The branching form of hypha.

 Spore
The basic and primary form of molds.
Motile and infective.

 Germ tube
The new born and the first growing form of molds.
 Dimorphic fungi (thermally dimorphic fungi)

• Thermal or nutritional dimorphism allowing them to inter

convert between morphologically distinct yeast (oval or
spherule) and mold forms.

 Environment/Routine culture media (SDA) 25-300C ---Mold form

 Tissue/Enriched media (BHI) 35-370C---Yeast form
 Capsules
• Capsules are extracellular polysaccharide- containing structures

found in
are involved in

• In Cryptococcus neoformans
• the capsule may determine
virulence properties and evasion
from mac rophages.
 Microscopic structures:
(Vegetative & Reproductive)
• Vegetative Hyphae

• Reproductive Hyphae
 Aerial hyphae above media
 Reproduc tive spores

 Reproduce by means of spores.

 Both sexual and asexual spores may be
produced, depending on the species and
conditions.
 (a–i) Sequence of frames from a videotape of Neurospora crassa growing
over a 1-hour period beneath a c overslip on an agar plate.

 Branching allows hyphae to increase their surface area to maximize

nutrient acquisition from their surrounding environment.
On the basis of the types of sexual structures that
fungi can be induced to form, the kingdom was
divided into a limited number of distinct phyla— the
Ascomycota, Zygomycota, and Basidiomycota— for
fungi with rec ognized sexual (teleomorph) forms.
 Ascospore cleistothecium
perithecium

Sexual apothecium
gymnthecium

Basidiospore

Zygospore

Reproduction of
Reproduction Oospore

AsexualFungi:
Blastoconidium
Phialoconidium
Annelloconidium
Microconidium
Macroconidium
Arthroconidium
Chlamydoconidium
Sporangiospore
Binary fission

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 Mycology
Study of fungi

 Mycosis (plural Mycoses)

A disease caused by infection with a fungus

 Mycotoxicosis
 The toxigenic activity of some common molds such as Aspergillus
which produce aflatoxin

Mycetismus (Toxicity of some mushroom; like: amanita)

(Mushrooms are typed as fungi but they are not micro fungi).

It is resulting from the consumption of mushrooms.

This is in contrast to mycotoxicosis where the
fungus acts on some foodstuff of humans

or animals and alters it .

Mycoses can be classified

according to the site of infection into:

 Superficial…

infections of the stratum corneum.

 Cutaneous…dermis.

 Subcutaneous…sub epidermis.

 Deep (systemic)…
in respiratory tract and developing to
other organ.