Protein profile of the most common fungi at Sultan Idris education univer-sity, Malaysia

Abstract

Fungi are vital pathogens related to airway and deferent diseases. Exposure to fungi will have adverse effects on human health through severe immune responses. Allergic diseases like allergic rhinitis, asthma, airborne dermatitis, or allergic conjunctivitis. These diseases may well be aggravated by fungi allergens from the natural atmosphere or from the indoor environment in enclosed areas, workplaces and houses. Fungi allergy prevalence for the Malaysian population has yet to be reported. Therefore, information on allergens of fungi species in Sultan Idris Education University (UPSI), Sultan Azlan Shah Campus will be used to profile the nation prevalence on fungi allergy. Hence, the present study is conducted at UPSI to identify the ten most common airborne fungal species as a preliminary work prior to sensitization study on common fungal allergens. Dust was collected from 54 rooms situated within the 3 blocks at UPSI Sultan Azlan Shah Campus buildings using a vacuum cleaner. The sieved dust was cultured using PDA media and incubated at room temperature to propagate pure culture and sent to the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute for identification using PCR. In this study the 10 most common species were identified as, Penicillium simplicissimum, Aspergillus aculeatus, Rhodosporidiobolus ruineniae, Ceriporia lacerate, Aspergillus caliodustus, Syncephalastrum sp., Aspergillus sp., Aspergillus fumigatus, Fusarium sp., and Penicillium canescens. Fungi profile exhibited in this study will lead to a further study on fungi allergy with skin prick test and immunoblotting to be carried out.