Seasonal variation of the dominant allergenic fungal aerosols \u2013 One year study from southern Indian region

Hema Priyamvada,R Ravikrishna,Rama Shanker Verma,Raj Kamal Singh,Sachin S Gunthe,M Akila

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-11727-7

Hema Priyamvada, R Ravikrishna + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-11727-7

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Journal: Scientific Reports	Publication Date: Sep 11, 2017
Citations: 54	License type: open-access

Affiliation: Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Abstract

Quantitative estimations of fungal aerosols are important to understand their role in causing respiratory diseases to humans especially in the developing and highly populated countries. In this study we sampled and quantified the three most dominantly found allergenic airborne fungi, Aspergillus fumigatus, Cladosporium cladosporioides, and Alternaria alternata from ambient PM10 samples using the quantitative PCR (qPCR) technique in a southern tropical Indian region, for one full year. Highest concentrations of A. fumigatus and C. cladosporioides were observed during monsoon whereas A. alternata displayed an elevated concentration in winter. The meteorological parameters such as temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and precipitation exhibited a substantial influence on the atmospheric concentrations of allergenic fungal aerosols. The morphological features of various allergenic fungal spores present in the PM10 were investigated and the spores were found to possess distinct structural features. In a maiden attempt over this region we correlate the ambient fungal concentrations with the epidemiological allergy occurrence to obtain firsthand and preliminary information about the causative fungal allergen to the inhabitants exposed to bioaerosols. Our findings may serve as an important reference to atmospheric scientists, aero-biologists, doctors, and general public.

Highlights

Fungi are one of the most important microorganisms that constitute a major fraction of the atmospheric aerosol particles
In this study we investigate the three most dominantly reported allergenic and plant pathogenic fungi, Aspergillus fumigatus (AF), Cladosporium cladosporioides (CC) and Alternaria alternata (AA) in the ambient PM10 using the advanced molecular based real time PCR (RT-PCR) technique
Our findings reported in this study are in line with these observations where elevated concentrations of A. fumigatus were observed during the dry period and elevated temperatures (Fig. 1a)

Summary

Introduction

Fungi are one of the most important microorganisms that constitute a major fraction (by mass and number) of the atmospheric aerosol particles They are ubiquitously found in both the outdoor and indoor environments and, many fungi are known to exert type I hypersensitivity reactions including allergic rhinitis and allergic asthma in healthy and sensitive human beings[1, 2]. The unavailability of the data for the allergenic fungal aerosols is mainly due to the lack of application of advanced techniques to quantify the presence of outdoor fungi as a part of atmospheric bioaerosols. In this study we investigate the three most dominantly reported allergenic and plant pathogenic fungi, Aspergillus fumigatus (AF), Cladosporium cladosporioides (CC) and Alternaria alternata (AA) in the ambient PM10 using the advanced molecular based real time PCR (RT-PCR) technique. For the first time we have correlated the ambient allergenic fungal concentrations with the prevalence of reported allergy cases over the study region

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