Malaria, leptospirosis, and undiagnosed fever were the main etiologies followed by pneumonia, urinary tract infections, and pancreatitis. Both the PaO 2 /FiO 2 ratio and lung injury score (LIS) at the time of admission were significant predictors of the outcome and of necessity of mechanical ventilation. PaO 2 /FiO 2 was a better predictor of duration of stay at the intensive care unit than the LIS. Sepsis, acidosis, hypotension, and multiorgan failure were individual predictors of mortality in patients with ALI/ARDS while age, sex, anemia, thrombocytopenia, renal failure, hepatic failure, and X-ray picture were not predictors of the outcome.

Production, purification and characterisation of a black pigment from Termitomyces albuminosus as melanin is reported, for the first time, from shaken submerged culture condition using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), elemental analysis, ultraviolet–visible (UV-VIS), and Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and 13C (CP/MAS) NMR spectra. SEM results on T. albuminosus revealed nanogranular nature of melanin nanoparticles within size range of 400–100 nm with fractal dimension D = 1.195–1.73. Elemental analysis of melanin indicated 54.6% C, 3.5% H, 2.4% N, 26.9% O, and 12% S. UV-VIS and FTIR spectra confirmed to the characteristic of melanin and were identical to the reference commercial sepia melanin. Further validation of the identity of pigment as melanin was achieved by EPR analysis. Termitomyces albuminosus melanin is postulated to be DOPA-type melanin confirmed by 13C (CP/MAS) NMR spectral analysis showing chemical shift at 200–170 ppm carbonyl, 160–110 ppm aromatic region, and with high 40–30 ppm open chain aliphatic region. Chemical modification through oxidation and cysteinylation (Pheomelanin) is implied as indicated by relatively high sulphur content (12%).

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There are gaps in existing understanding of fungal pellet growth dynamics. We used scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for morphological characterization of the biomass organization of Termitomyces pellets for seven species: T. microcarpus (TMI1), T. albuminosus (TAL1, TAL2), T. striatus (TSTR), T. aurantiacus (TAUR), T. heimii (THE1, THE2), T. globulus (TGLO) and T. clypeatus (TCL1, TCL2, TCL3, TCL4, TCL5). We assessed the utility of SEM for morphological and structural characterization of Termitomyces spp. in three dimensional (3D) pellet form to identify ideal pellet morphology for industrial use. Typological classification of Termitomyces species was based on furrows, isotropy, total motifs and fractal dimensions. The pellets formed were entangled and exhibited highly compacted mycelial mass with microheterogeneity and microporosity. The mean density of furrows of Termitomyces species was between 10,000 and 11,300 cm/cm, percentage isotropy was 30-80 and total motifs varied from 300 to 2500. TGLO exhibited the highest furrow mean density, 11243 cm/cm, which indicated a compact, cerebroid structure with complex ridges and furrows, whereas TAL2 exhibited the lowest furrow density. TMI1a exhibited a high percentage isotropic value, 74.6, TSTR exhibited the lowest, 30.9. Total motif number also was used as a typological classification parameter. Fractal values were 2.64-2.78 for various submerged conditions of Termitomyces species. TAL1 exhibited the highest fractal dimension and TAL2 the lowest, which indicates the complexity of branching patterns. Three-dimensional SEM image analysis can provide insight into pellet micromorphology and is a powerful tool for exploring topographical details of pellets.

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