Increased Production of Pathogenic, Airborne Fungal Spores upon Exposure of a Soil Mycobiota to Chlorinated Aromatic Hydrocarbon Pollutants.

ABSTRACT: Organic pollutants are omnipresent and can penetrate all environmental niches. We evaluated the hypothesis that short-term (acute) exposure to aromatic hydrocarbon pollutants could increase the potential for fungal virulence. Specifically, we analyzed whether pentachlorophenol and triclosan pollution results in the production of airborne fungal spores with greater virulence than those derived from an unpolluted (Control) condition. Each pollutant altered the composition of the community of airborne spores compared to the control, favoring an increase in strains with in vivo infection capacity (the wax moth Galleria mellonella was used as an infection model). Fungi subsisting inside larvae at 72 h postinjection with airborne spore inocula collected in polluted and unpolluted conditio

SUBMITTER: Martins C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10434042 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature