Fungus

[Dilworth]

I personally have seen Aspergillus versicolor grow from toenail
specimens.  The species of Aspergillus that can be implicated most often
in respiratory infections is Aspergillus fumigatus.  When we get an
Aspergillus at our lab (clinical specimens) from various sources
including respiratory secretions, we subculture any blue-green
aspergillus to 45 degrees centigrade for a couple of days.  If it grows
at this high temperature and it is blue green, we call it A. fumigatus. 
If it does not grow at this temperature, we sign it out as Aspergillus
species not fumigatus and don't go any further than that.  If it is an
Aspergillus that produces black hyphae, we call it Aspergillus niger.  

At the lab I worked at before, we speciated a couple of A. versicolor
specimens, but they were from nails, i.e. onchomycosis.

Here are some web sites if you want some further reading:

http://www.iapac.org/clinmgt/diseases/fungal/asper.html
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/aspergillosis_t.htm
http://www.aspergillus.man.ac.uk/   (free but you need to register)

Hope this helps.

Judy Dilworth, M.T. (ASCP)
Microbiology

Marcel JULIEN wrote:

> I'm a engineer practicing in  the Province of Quebec. When I was doing an
> expertise in a client¹s house I found fungus and from the analyze  we found
> that the fungus was aspergillus versicolor - ufc/g  > 30 x10exp6.