A new service from Atlas of Clinical Fungi: repository of veterinary cases

A new service from Atlas of Clinical Fungi: repository of veterinary cases

Fungal infections in animals are widely diverse (Seyedmousavi et al. 2018). Animal species may carry their own specific fungi. In these times of pandemics, it is essential to realize that many human microbial diseases have their origin in animals. Groups of animals carry specific fungi, which have a different chance to cause infection in humans. The chance that adaptations to new hosts take place, depends on the animal species with its specific fungus and on the host’s immune status, but also on the socioeconomic conditions of humans and the type of interaction with animals.
We can broadly distinguish three types of fungal infection in vertebrates:

1. Infections exclusively detected in non-mammal vertebrates. Reptile infections are relatively common, usually concerning members of the order Onygenales (Kandemir et al. 2022). Stchigel et al. (2014) even described a specific family within this order to classify a gamut of reptile pathogens, such as the genus Nannizziopsis which seems to have a predilection for the dry reptile skin. These species are hardly ever reported on humans. Human infections can be caused by members of the same order, but by members of entirely different families. Chytridiomycosis (Horner et al. 2015) is considered a major threat to amphibian biodiversity but there is no transmission to mammals.

2. Infections of non-mammal vertebrates that may be shared by humans. Marine bony fish are frequently infected by black fungi such as species of Ochroconis and Exophiala (Hatai & Kubota 1989; Munchan et al. 2009; Samerpitak et al. 2019), while species of Fonsecaea have repeatedly been reported from amphibians. In contrast, fungal infections in cartilaginous fishes (sharks and allies) are nearly always caused by hyaline species, mostly Fusarium (Desoubeaux et al. 2018). A human is unlikely to be infected by a fish. The black environmental fungi seem to have a generalist ability to survive in living tissue, whether fish or human, once inoculated by coincidence. De Hoog et al. (2011) noted a similarity between fish and human in that fur or feathers are lacking, but there is moisture, either by water or sweat. Mammal bodies other than humans are water-repellent by their fur, and birds by their feathers. The prevalent infections in birds concern Aspergillus in air sacs. The human counterpart is pulmonary aspergillosis (Hodiamont et al. 2009; Sitirou et al. 2015; Koehler et al. 2020).

3. Infections shared by mammals and humans. Mammals are close enough to humans to allow direct fungal transmission. This starts with hunts of wild armadillos in the Brazilian forest, till the pet cats, guinea pigs and rabbits infecting our children. Many of the latter infecting fungi are dermatophytes (i.e. the family Arthrodermataceae in Onygenales, Zhang et al. 2022). The spectrum of fungi concerned has  changed significantly with changing human conditions e.g. from rural to urban life styles (Zhan & Li 2017): while in the past, camels and sheep were frequent sources of infection, today prevalent infections have their origin in pet animals, including the new cute pygmy hedgehog (Gergovska et al. 2021). A new dermatophyte that causes serious problems in India and is spreading (Luchsinger et al. 2015; Singh et al. 2018; Nenoff et al. 2020) may also have an animal origin. The bat-associated fungus Histoplasma capsulatum infects bats and humans alike (Taylor et al. 2012; Rocha-Silva et al. 2014; Armstrong et al. 2018). In southern Brazil, outbreaks of human sporotrichosis are directly connected to zoonotic transmission of Sporothrix brasiliensis from domestic cats (Ortiz Sanchotene et al. 2015).

From a One-Health perspective, animal infections are obviously significant. Knowledge advances with accumulation of data. In order to stimulate maintenance of animal cases and making them publicly available, we started a repository of animal clinical cases on the Atlas website. The site is user-friendly and deposition is really easy; your case is immediately visible on the web. Subsequent publication of detailed cases is still possible and recommended. We hope you enjoy this new service.

References:

  • Armstrong PA, Beard JD, Bonilla L, et al. (2018) Outbreak of severe histoplasmosis among tunnel workers – Dominican Republic, 2015. Clin. Infect. Dis. 66: 1550-1557.
  • de Hoog GS, Vicente VA, Najafzadeh MJ, et al. (2011). Waterborne Exophiala species causing disease in cold-blooded animals. Persoonia 27: 46–72.
  • Desoubeaux G, Debourgogne A, Wiederhold NP, et al. (2018) Multi-locus sequence typing provides epidemiological insights for diseased sharks infected with fungi belonging to the Fusarium solani species complex. Med. Mycol. 56: 591-601.
  • Gergovska M, Manuelyan K, Hitova K, Kazandjieva J (2021) Dermatophyte infection transmitted by an African pygmy hedgehog. Int. J. Dermatol. 60: 1036-1037.
  • Hatai K, Kubota SS (1989) A visceral mycosis in cultured masu salmon (Oncorhynchus masou) caused by a species of Ochroconis. J. Wildlife Dis. 25: 83-88.
  • Hodiamont CJ, Dolman KM, ten Berge IJM, et al. (2009) Multiple-azole-resistant Aspergillus fumigatus osteomycelitis in a patient with chronic granulomatous disease successfully treated with long-term oral posaconazole and surgery. Med. Mycol. 47: 217-220.
  • Horner AA, Hoffman EA, Tye MR, et al. (2017) Cryptic chytridiomycosis linked to climate and genetic variation in amphibian populations of the southeastern United States. PloS one 12, –
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  • Luchsinger I, Bosshard PP, Kasper RS, et al. (2015) Tinea genitalis: a new entity of sexually transmitted infection? Case series and review of the literature. Sex. Transm. Infect. 91: 493-496.
  • Munchan C, Kurata O, Wada S, et al. (2009) Exophiala xenobiotica infection in cultured striped jack, Pseudocaranx dentex (Bloch & Schneider), in Japan. J. Fish Dis. 32: 893-900.
  • Nenoff P, Verma SB, Ebert A, et al. (2020) Spread of terbinafine-resistant Trichophyton mentagrophytes Type VIII (India) in Germany – “the tip of the iceberg?”. J. Fungi, Basel 6: doi 10.3390/jof6040207.
  • Ortiz Sanchotene K, Martins Madrid I, Baracy Klafke G, et al. (2015) Sporothrix brasiliensis outbreaks and the rapid emergence of feline sporotrichosis. Mycoses 58 : 652-658.
  • Rocha-Silva F, Figueiredo SM, Silveira TT, et al. (2014) Histoplasmosis outbreak in Tamboril cave-Minas Gerais state, Brazil. Med. Mycol. Case Rep. 4: 42461.
  • Samerpitak K, Alfjorden A, Seyedmousavi S, et al. (2019) Ochroconis globalis infecting Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), with a review of Ochroconis species in cold-blooded animals. J. Fish Dis. 42: 947-957.
  • Seyedmousavi S, Bosco S, de Hoog GS,  et al. (2018). Fungal infections in animals: a patchwork of different situations. Med. Mycol. 56: S165–S187.
  • Singh A, Masih A, Khurana A, et al. (2018) High terbinafine resistance in Trichophyton interdigitale isolates in Delhi, India harbouring mutations in the squalene epoxidase gene. Mycoses 61: 477-484.
  • Sotiriou A, Koulouris N, Bakakos P (2015) Fever and multilobular mass of the right lung in a young adult with asthma. Med. Mycol. Case Rep. 10: 7-10.
  • Stchigel AM, Sutton DA, Cano-Lira JF, et al. (2014) Phylogeny of chrysosporia infecting  reptiles: proposal of the new family Nannizziopsiaceae and five new  species. Persoonia 31: 86-100.
  • Taylor MA, Hernández-García L, Estrada-Bárcenas D, et al. (2012) Genetic diversity of Histoplasma capsulatum isolated from infected bats randomly captured in Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina, using the polymorphism of (GA)n microsatellite and its flanking regions. Fung. Biol. 116: 308-317.
  • Zhan P, Li W (2017) The changing face of dermatophytic infections worldwide. Mycopathologia 182: 77-86.
  • Zhang ZY, Ren YL, Li X et al. (2022) New taxonomic framework for Arthrodermataceae: A comprehensive analysis based on their phylogenetic reconstruction, divergence time estimation, phylogenetic split network, and phylogeography. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (in press).