Basic Mycology
Basic Mycology
Basic Mycology
(Eumycota)
By:Dr.Tahseen Ismail
Introduction:
• Microbiologists use the term fungus [pl., fungi; Latin fungus, mushroom] to describe eucaryotic
organisms that are spore-bearing, have absorptive nutrition, lack chlorophyll, and reproduce
sexually and asexually.
• Scientists who study fungi are mycologists [Greek mykes, mushroom, and logos, science], and the
scientific discipline devoted to fungi is called mycology.
• The study of fungal toxins and their effects is called mycotoxicology, and the diseases caused by
fungi in animals are known as mycoses (s., mycosis). According to the universal phylogenetic tree,
fungi are members of the domain Eucarya.
• Fungi are widely distributed and are found wherever moisture is present. They are of great
importance to humans in both beneficial and harmful ways.
• The fungi have a long and confused taxonomic history. Their relatively simple morphology, wide
diversity, and lack of a fossil Fungi.
• Like protists, fungi record limit the value of traditional taxonomic approaches. Presently eight
fungal groups:
• Chytridiomycetes, Zygomycota, Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, Urediniomycetes,Ustilaginomycetes,
Glomeromycota, and Microsporidia.
• Morphological, biochemical and molecular phylogenetic analyses demonstrate that the Fungi
constitute a monophyletic group. They are sometimes referred to as the true fungi or Eumycota
Distribution & Importance
• Fungi are primarily terrestrial organisms, although a few are freshwater or marine. They have a
global distribution from polar to tropical regions.
• Many are pathogenic and infect plants and animals. Fungi also form beneficial relationships with
other organisms. For example, the vast majority of vascular plant roots form associations (called
mycorrhizae) with fungi.
• Fungi also are found in the upper portions of many plants. These endophytic fungi affect plant
reproduction and palatability to herbivores.
• Lichens are associations of fungi and photosynthetic protists or cyanobacteria.
• About 90,000 fungal species have been described; however, some estimates suggest that 1.5
million species may exist.
• Fungi are important to humans in both beneficial and harmful ways. With bacteria and a few other
groups of chemoorganotrophic organisms, fungi act as decomposers, a role of enormous
significance.
• They degrade complex organic materials in the environment to simple organic compounds and
inorganic molecules. In this way carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and other critical constituents of
dead organisms are released and made available for living organisms.
• Fungi can be a major cause of disease. Plants are particularly vulnerable to fungal diseases
because fungi can invade leaves through their stomates.
• Over 5,000 species attack economically valuable crops, garden plants, and many wild plants.
• Fungi also cause many diseases of animals and humans. In fact, about 20 new human fungal
pathogens are documented each year.
• Fungi, especially the yeasts, are essential to many industrial processes involving fermentation.
Examples include the making of bread, wine, and beer.
• Fungi also play a major role in the preparation of some cheeses, soy sauce, and sufu; in the
commercial production of many organic acids (citric, gallic) and certain drugs (ergometrine,
cortisone); and in the manufacture of many antibiotics (penicillin, griseofulvin) and the
immunosuppressive drug cyclosporin.
• Finally, fungi are important research tools in the study of fundamental biological processes.
• Cytologists, geneticists, biochemists, biophysicists, and microbiologists regularly use fungi in their
research.
• The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is the best understood eucaryotic cell. It has been a valuable
model organism in the study of cell biology, genetics, and cancer.
Fungal Pathogens of Plants
STRUCTURE
• The body or vegetative structure of a fungus is called a thallus [pl., thalli]. It varies in complexity and size,
ranging from the single-cell microscopic yeasts to multicellular molds, macroscopic puffballs,
and mushrooms.
• The fungal cell usually is encased in a cell wall of chitin.
• Chitin is a strong but flexible nitrogen containing polysaccharide consisting of N-acetylglucosamine residues.
• There are two types of fungi: yeasts and molds.
• Yeasts grow as single cells that reproduce by asexual budding. Molds grow as long filaments (hyphae) and
form a mat (mycelium).
• A yeast is a unicellular fungus that has a single nucleus and reproduces either asexually by budding and
transverse division or sexually through spore formation. Each bud that separates can grow into a new yeast,
and some group together to form colonies.
• Generally yeast cells are larger than bacteria, vary considerably in size, and are commonly spherical to egg
shaped.
• They lack flagella but possess most of the other eucaryotic organelles.
• The thallus of a mold consists of long, branched, threadlike filaments of cells called hyphae [s., hypha; Greek
hyphe, web] that form a mycelium (pl., mycelia), a tangled mass or tissue like aggregation of hyphae In some
fungi, protoplasm streams through hyphae, uninterrupted by cross walls These hyphae are called coenocytic
or aseptate.
• The hyphae of other fungi have cross walls called septa (s., septum) with either a single pore or multiple
pores that enable cytoplasmic streaming. These hyphae are termed septate.
Fungal Thalli.
A Yeast. Diagrammatic drawing of a yeast cell showing typical morphology
• Hyphae are composed of an outer cell wall and an inner lumen, which contains the cytosol and
organelles.
• A plasma membrane surrounds the cytoplasm and lies next to the cell wall. The filamentous nature
of hyphae results in a large surface area relative to the volume of cytoplasm. This makes adequate
nutrient absorption possible.
• The fungal cell membrane contains ergosterol, in contrast to the human cell membrane, which
contains cholesterol. The selective action of amphotericin B and azole drugs, such as fluconazole
and ketoconazole, on fungi is based on this difference in membrane sterols.
YM shift
• Several medically important fungi are thermally dimorphic (i.e., they form different structures at different
temperatures).
• They exist as molds in the environment at ambient temperature and as yeasts (or other structures) in human
tissues at body temperature.
• Dimorphic fungi can change from the yeast (Y) form in the animal to the mold or mycelial form (M) in the
external environment in response to changes in various environmental factors (nutrients, CO2 tension,
oxidation-reduction potentials, temperature). This shift is called the YM shift.
• In plant-associated fungi the opposite type of dimorphism exists: the mycelial form occurs in the plant and the
yeast form in the external environment.
Nutrition and Metabolism:
• Fungi grow best in dark, moist habitats where there is little danger of desiccation, but they are
found wherever organic material is available.
• Most fungi are saprophytes, securing their nutrients from dead organic material.
• Like many bacteria and protists, fungi release hydrolytic exoenzymes that digest external
substrates. They
then absorb the soluble products—a process sometimes called osmotrophy.
• They are chemo-organoheterotrophs and use organic compounds as a source of carbon, electrons,
and energy
• Glycogen is the primary storage polysaccharide in fungi. Most fungi use carbohydrates (preferably
glucose or maltose) and nitrogenous compounds to synthesize their own amino acids and proteins.
• Fungi usually are aerobic. Some yeasts, however, are facultatively anaerobic and can obtain energy
by fermentation.
• Many fungal fermentations are of industrial importance, such as the production of ethyl alcohol in
the manufacture of beer and wine.
• Obligately anaerobic fungi are found in the rumen of cattle.
REPRODUCTION
• The drugs used to treat bacterial diseases have no effect on fungal diseases.
• For example, penicillins and aminoglycosides inhibit the growth of many bacteria but do not affect the growth of
fungi.
• This difference is explained by the presence of certain structures in bacteria (e.g., peptidoglycan and 70S ribosomes)
that are absent in fungi.
• The most effective antifungal drugs, amphotericin B and the various azoles, exploit the presence of ergosterol in
fungal cell membranes that is not found in bacterial or human cell membranes.
• Amphotericin B (Fungizone) disrupts fungal cell membranes at the site of ergosterol and azole drugs inhibit the
synthesis of ergosterol, which is an essential component of fungal membranes.
• Another antifungal drug, caspofungin (Cancidas), inhibits the synthesis of β-glucan, which is found in fungal cell
walls but not in bacterial cell walls. Human cells do not have a cell wall.
•