Aspergillus species

A. nidulans (Eidam) Winter. Click here for clinical material

Colony characteristics. Colonies (CzA) growing rapidly, green, cream-buff or honey-yellow; reverse dark purplish.

Microscopy. Conidial heads short, columnar, up to 80 micrometre long. Conidiophore stipes brownish, 60-130 x 2.5-3 micrometre. Vesicles hemispherical, 8-10 micrometre diam. Conidiogenous cells biseriate, 5-9 x 2-3 micrometre. Metulae 5-6 x 2.3 micrometre. Conidia spherical, rugulose, subhyaline, green in mass, 3-4 micrometre diam.

Teleomorph. Emericella nidulans (Eidam) Wint.Ascomata spherical, purple, 100-200 micrometre diam, surrounded by a yellowish to cinnemon layer of scattered hyphae bearing a dense aggregation of pale yellow, thick walled, spherical to subspherical Hulle cells. Asci 8-spored, spherical to subspherical, 7-12 micrometre diam. Ascospores purple-red, smooth walled, with two equatorial crests, lenticular, 3,8-4.5 x 3.5-4 micrometre (excluding the crests).

Pathogenicity. This species has been reported as the etiologic agent of diverse infections in humans, either alone or in association with other opportunistic fungi (Welsh & Buchness, 1955; Redmond et al., 1965; Doby & Kombila-Favry, 1978; Shao et al., 1983; Mitchell et al., 1987, Karaev, 1990 (non-English review), Tong et al., 1990, Mizuki et al., 1994) and seems to be a particularly virulent pathogen in sufferers of Chronic Granulomatous Disease CGD (Segal et al., 1998).
Infections of animal groups such as cow, horse, rhinoceros, duck and pigeon (Ainsworth & Ruwell, 1949) have been reported (Smith, 1989) - mainly pulmonary disease but also as bovine mycotic abortion (Plum, 1929) and others (Smith, 1989).

Notes. A. nidulans is a very convenient and amenable organism for study in the laboratory and as such has a long history of use for the study of a wide range of subjects including basic genetic problems (recombination, DNA repair, mutation), cell biology (cell cycle control) and pathogenesis (Holden et al., 1994, Purnell, 1978 - both reviews). One result of this intensive effort is that in contrast to many other Aspergillus fungi (most of which do not have a known sexual form and thus cannot be used for classical genetic studies), A. nidulans has an extremely well worked out genetic map of its genome. This information is available on many website resources, some of which are listed here:

Fungal genetics stock centre - A comprehensive collection of mutants, linkage data, wild type strains, genetic maps, bibliography and more.
A. nidulans chromosome 4 genomic DNA sequences
A. nidulans EST database
A. nidulans physical map - Overview
A. nidulans physical maps - Detailed
Fungal genome resource - Information on linkage maps, Aspergillus genome initiative and other Genomics-related subjects.
John Clutterbuck's A. nidulans Linkage map - Includes references and annual bibliographies.
A. nidulans bioinformatics - Physical & genetic maps and links to many of the above sites.

A more complete listing of links can be found here

References -

Selected historical references are listed below

Ainsworth G.C. & Rewell, R.E., (1949). The incidence of aspergillosis in captive wild birds. J. Comp. Path. 59: 213-224.

Doby, J.M. & Kombila-Favry, M., (1978). Presence de formes sexuees (cleistotheces et Hulle cells) dans un cas humain d'aspergillose du sinus maxillaire chez Aspergillus nidulans associe a Aspergillus fumigatus. Mycopathologia 64: 157-163.

Holden, D.W., Tang, C.M. & Smith, J.M., (1994). Molecular genetics of Aspergillus pathogenicity. Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek 65(3): 251-255.

Karaev, Z.O., (1990). Lung mycoses caused by opportunistic fungi. Terapevticheskii arkhiv 62(11): 137-141.

Mitchell, R.G., Chaplin, A.J. & Mackenzie, D.W.R., (1987). Emericella nidulans in a maxillary sinus fungal mass. J. Med. Vet. Mycol. 25: 339-341.

Mizuki, M., Chikuba, K. & Tanaka, K., (1994). A case of chronic necrotising pulmonary aspergillosis due to Aspergillus nidulans. Mycopathologia 128(2): 75-79.

Plum, N., (1932). Verschiedene Hyphomyceten-Arten als Ursache sporadischer Falle von Abortus beim Rinde. Acta. Path. Microbial. Scand. 9: 150-157.

Purnell, D.M., (1978). Virulence genetics of Aspergillus nidulans Eidam: a review. Mycopathologia. 65(1-3): 177-182.

Raper, K.B. & Fennell, D.I., (1965).The genus  Aspergillus. Williams & Wilkins, Baltimore, 686 pp.

Redmond, A., Carre, I.J., Biggart, J.D. & Mackenzie, D.W.R., (1965). Aspergillosis (Aspergillus nidulans) involving bone.J. Pathol. Bacteriol. 89: 391-395.

Segal, B.H., DeCarlo, E.S., Kwon-Chung, K.J., Malech, H.L., Gallin, J.I. & Holland, S.M., (1998). Aspergillus nidulans infection in chronic granulomatous disease. Medicine-Baltimore. 77(5): 345-354.

Shao, J.Z., Liao, W.Q., Li, S.O., Wu, S.X., Zhang, J.Z. & Huang, J.J., (1983). Mycologic identification of Emericella nidulans and Aspergillus flavus caused pulmonary infection. Chin. Med. J. 96: 306-308.

Smith, J.M.B. (1989). Opportunistic Mycoses of man and other Animals. CAB International, Wallingford, Oxon, UK.

Tong, Q.J., Chai, W.X., Wang, Z.F., Kou, J.F., Qi, Z.T. & Wang, D.L., (1990). A case of cerebral aspergillosis caused by Aspergillus nidulans. Clinical, pathologic and mycologic identifications. Chin. Med. J. Engl. 103(6): 518-522.

Welsh, R.A. & Buchness, J.M., (1955). Aspergillus endocarditis, myocarditis and lung abscesses. Report of a case. Am. J. Clin. Pathol. 25: 782-786.