Preliminary survey of indoor and outdoor airborne microfungi at coastal buildings in Egypt

Abstract

Forty six species and two sterile fungi and yeast species were isolated from samples collected both indoors and outdoors of coastal buildings located in an Egyptian coastal city. Twenty flats from ten buildings were investigated; children living in these buildings have been reported to suffer from respiratory illnesses. Samples were taken using a New Brunswick sampler (model STA-101) operating for 3.0 min at a flow rate of 6.0 l/min. Most of the species isolated have been associated with symptoms of respiratory allergies. Indoors the total culturable fungal count was 1548 CFU/m 3 ; outdoors, it was 1452 CFU/m 3 . Indoor values of culturable fungal count, total spores count and ergosterol content ranged from 52 to 124 CFU/m 3 , 100 to 400 spore/m 3 and 5 to 27.7 mg/m 3 , respectively, whereas outdoor levels typically varied between 25 and 222 CFU/m 3 , 110 and 900 spore/m 3 and 3.3 and 67.2 mg/m 3 , respectively. The maxima for these parameters were detected indoors in house no. 6 and outdoors, outside of house no. 7. The most abundant species were primarily mitosporic (2832 CFU/m 3 ). The most frequent species in both the indoor and outdoor samples were Cladosporium cladosporioides followed by Alternaria alternata and Penicillium chrysogenum,with inside:outside ratios of 1.4, 1.8 and 1.9, respectively. The patterns of fungal abundance were influenced to some extent by changes in the relative humidity and temperature. Other factors, such as type of culture media, rate of sedimentation, size, survival rates of spore and species competition,also affected fungal counts and should be taken into consideration during any analysis of bioaerosol data.

Concentration and Size Distribution of Culturable Airborne Microorganisms in Outdoor Environments in Beijing, China

“…The most commonly reported airborne bacteria genera are Bacillus, Micrococcus, Staphylococcus, and Pseudomonas (Mancinelli and Shulls 1978;Shaffer and Lighthart 1997), whereas Cladosporium, Alternaria, Penicillium, Aspergillus species dominate the fungal composition of outdoor atmospheric environments (El-Morsy 2006;Fang et al 2005). The concentration of microbes in the air is affected by several factors, including daily and seasonal meteorological variations, vegetation, air pollution, agricultural, industrial, and other human activity (Klaric and Pepeljnjak 2006;Levetin and Dorsey 2006;Lin and Li 2000;Pasanen 1992).…”

Biodiversity and molecular characterization of yeast and filamentous fungi in the air of citrus and grapevine plantations in Assiut area, Egypt

“…In several aeromycological studies and in agreement with the current results, Cladosporium was considered as one of most abundant genera, if not, the most, abundant one reported all over the world such as Egypt (Moubasher & Moustafa 1974, El-Sherbeny 1987, Moubasher 1993, Ismail et al 2002, Hellwan area, Egypt (Abdel Hameed et al 2009), banana field in Qena (El-Said & Abdel-Hafez 1995), Uganda (Ismail et al 1999), USA (Lacey 1981), Porto (Oliveira et al 2005), Yemen (El-Essawy et al 1992), Doha, Qatar (Al-Subai 2002), Eskisehir and Afyonkarahisar, Turkey (Asan et al 2004(Asan et al , O¨zkara et al 2007), Sari and Zanjan, Iran (Hedayati et al 2005, Nourian et al 2007, and Amman and Zarqa area, Jordan (Shaheen 1992, Abu-Dieyeh et al 2010. Cladosporium spores are the dominant aerospora in hot climates (Takahashi 1997, Sen & Asan 2001, Al-Subai 2002, El-Morsy 2006. Cladosporium spores contributed the highest number (26.87% to the total sugarcane fields aerspora) in India (Ahire et al 2010), of aerospora in groundnut fields (47·32%) in Visakhapatnam, India (Mallaiah & Rao 1990), as well as of the aerospora (65·7%) in Hong Kong (Turner 1966).…”

A study of airborne fungal allergens in sandstorm dust in Al-Zulfi, Central region of Saudi Arabia

“…Many authors have reported that the high percentage of Cladosporium may be attributed by the size of spores and smooth wall which favor and facilitate the transport of airborne spores in sandstorms. A further factor favoring this fungus is due to the spores being highly resistant to hot climates [18,32].…”