incubation of fungi

[JorgeLobo]

Indoor air - dust will have osmophiles. Air from the exterior will carry Asperigillus, Penicillium and Cladosproium spore.

As biohazard suggested, the temp is prob still to high. What medium are you using?

[stopherlogic]

Malt extract agar

[JorgeLobo]

Good medium for that purpose. Assume you're not that interested in osmophiles?

[stopherlogic]

Just interested in possible pathogens really thought it was the best general purpose media. Didn't want to be too selective.

[JorgeLobo]

No worries for osmophiles if you're looking for "pathogens." Are you also looking for toxigenic fungi?

[stopherlogic]

Yes, anything which you would say has an effect on human health but it will be necessary to identify whatever I find.

[JorgeLobo]

malt extract will prob be adequate. How do you plan to id - and th what extent (genus, species?)

[stopherlogic]

I was planning to just id using colony morphology, and use the adhesive tape method to observe microscopically, not sure whether i will need to stain as yet. Just going to categorise by genus.

[JorgeLobo]

Understand you may have limitations in what's available but colony morphology is not going to serve well, even if you're an experienced mycologist, and no way will you be able to adequately id "pathogens" even fumigatus. Scotch tape is messy and it's real hard to get decent conidiophores.

Can you set up slides culture? That would help seeing mode of spore production. Establishing higher temp incubation would help with fumigatus and a black fungus or two.

In terms of "pathogenic fungi" what do you think you'd need to id?

[stopherlogic]

Pathogenic fungi is of particular interest which is probably why I made the mistake of incubating too high in the first place. So at 37 all I think I am seeing is a few colonies of penicillium up to now. I plan incubate the same samples at 25 on monday and hopefully I will get some more growth if everything hasn't died off. I realise pathogens are an unlikely prospect but human health was the original angle which I was taking with my project. I haven't thought about slide cultures but I will look into it. I am running low on time though.

[JorgeLobo]

short of marneffii, what penicillium, would you have considered pathogenic?

[stopherlogic]

There are no others as far as I am aware and the chances of it being marneffii are unlikely. Finding pathogens is extremely unlikely unless I count opportunistic pathogens such as some aspergillus (?) which I would have to incubate at a lower temperature. I was looking for pathogens or anything affecting human health but have to identify anything I find.