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Chaetomium in Indoor Environment and Medically Important Species of Chaetomium

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Recent Developments on Genus Chaetomium

Part of the book series: Fungal Biology ((FUNGBIO))

Abstract

Infections caused by fungi are a significant contributor to morbidity and mortality in humans. These infections range from comparatively innocuous superficial skin diseases caused by dermatophytes to invasive life-threatening infections. Chaetomium species belong to a large genus of saprobic ascomycetes found on dung, straw, paper, bird feathers, seeds, plant debris, and soil. Although Chaetomium species are rarely implicated in human disease, their spectrum of mycoses includes keratitis, onychomycosis, and sinusitis in immunocompetent individuals and empyema, pneumonia, and fatal disseminated cerebral disease in immunocompromised hosts and intravenous drug users. Since many of the diseases caused by Chaetomium are opportunistic in nature, the pathogenesis of fungal infections is complex and our understanding of how these taxa cause disease has lagged behind bacterial and viral pathogens. However, the application of new genomic and other molecular techniques in recent years has revolutionized the field of fungal pathogenesis. This has resulted in a dramatic improvement in our understanding of how fungi cause disease in humans, and this chapter presents a concise overview of Chaetomium taxa including their role in human diseases.

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  1. Botany Department, Faculty of Science, University of Suez Canal, Ismailia, Egypt

    Eman A. Attia & Ahmed M. Abdel-Azeem

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  1. Eman A. Attia
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  1. Botany Department, Faculty of Science, Suez Canal University, Ismalilia, Egypt

    Ahmed M. Abdel-Azeem

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Attia, E.A., Abdel-Azeem, A.M. (2020). Chaetomium in Indoor Environment and Medically Important Species of Chaetomium. In: Abdel-Azeem, A. (eds) Recent Developments on Genus Chaetomium . Fungal Biology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31612-9_5

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