Microsporum audouinii . [Descriptions of Fungi and Bacteria

Abstract

Abstract A description is provided for Microsporum audouinii . Information is included on the disease caused by the organism, its transmission, geographical distribution, and hosts. HOSTS: Primarily a pathogen of man. Also recorded on the dog, gibbon, guineapig and monkey. Most strains are not pathogenic for experimental animals. DISEASE: Ringworm (dermatophytosis, tinea). Infected hairs usually fluoresce bright green under Wood's light and are surrounded by an ectothrix sheath of small spores in a mosaic arrangement. In man, the scalp (tinea capitis) and less frequently the glabrous skin (tinea corporis) may be infected. Children are most susceptible, and in adults infection is usually confined to the glabrous skin, although a few scalp infections have been reported. Rothman et al. (RMVM 1, 614) noted that fatty acids from adult hair fat inhibited M. audouinii in vitro and suggested that this was the reason for lower incidence of infection in adults, but Kligman & Grinsberg (RMVM 1, 1800) found that adult sebum was not more fungistatic than that of children. Scalp lesions are usually circular, scaling areas of alopecia and, in contrast to M. cants infections, there is generally very little inflammatory reaction. Skin lesions are usually circulate scaling areas with clearing centres. Kligman (RMVM 1, 2510; 2, 2484) studied the pathogenesis of tinea capitis due to M. audouinii . GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION: Africa (Algeria, Chad Republic, Cameroons, Congo, Egypt, French West Africa, Guinea Republic, Madagascar, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Tunisia); Asia (India, Java, Palestine, Persia, Turkey), Australasia & Oceania (Australia (New South Wales, Western Australia), New Zealand), Europe (Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain and Ireland, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, U.S.S.R., Yugoslavia), North America (Canada, U.S.A.), Central America and West Indies (Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico); South America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Venezuela).