Banana peel culture as an indigenous medium for easy identification of late‑sporulation human fungal pathogens.

Aim: Fungi are increasing in incidence as human pathogens and newer and rarer species are continuously being encountered. Identifying these species from growth on regular culture media may be challenging due to the absence of typical features. An indigenous and cheap medium, similar to the natural substrate of these fungi, was standardised in our laboratory as an aid to species identification in a conventional laboratory setting. Materials and Methods: Ripe banana peel pieces, sterilised in an autoclave at 121°C temperature and 15 lbs pressure for 15 min promoted good growth of hyphae and pycnidia or acervuli in coelomycetes, flabelliform and medusoid fruiting bodies of basidiomycetes and fruit bodies such as cleistothecium in ascomycetes. The growth from the primary isolation medium was taken and inoculated onto the pieces of double‑autoclaved ripe banana peel pieces in a sterile glass Petri dish with some moisture (sprinkles of sterile distilled water). A few sterile coverslips were placed randomly inside the Petri dish for the growing fungus to stick on to it. The plates were kept at room temperature and left undisturbed for 15–20 days. At a time, one coverslip was taken out and placed on a slide with lactophenol cotton blue and focused under the microscope to look for fruit bodies. Results: Lasiodiplodia theobromae, Macrophomina phaseolina, Nigrospora sphaerica, Chaetomium murorum, Nattrassia mangiferae and Schizophyllum commune were identified by characteristic features from growth on banana peel culture. Conclusions: Banana peel culture is a cheap and effective medium resembling the natural substrate of fungi and is useful for promoting characteristic reproductive structures that aid identification.

Morphology and Phylogeny of Neoscytalidium orchidacearum sp. nov. (Botryosphaeriaceae)

A coelomycete with characters resembling the asexual morphs in the family Botryosphaeriaceae was isolated from a fallen leaf of an orchid collected in Thailand. Morphological and phylogenetic analyses placed the strain in Neoscytalidium. Phylogenetic relationships among Neoscytalidium species were inferred by analyzing internal transcribed spacers and large subunit of rRNA sequence data and indicate that our strain is a new species, which is introduced and illustrated herein as Neoscytalidium orchidacearum sp. nov.

Nattrassia mangiferae causing fungal keratitis.

We report a case of fungal keratitis caused by the coelomycetous fungus Nattrassia mangiferae in a 70 year old gentleman, agriculturist by occupation, with a history of injury to his right eye. The scraping showed narrow septate fungal hyphae on a KOH mount, isolation of a fast growing black mould, which demonstrated hyphae and arthroconidia of varying widths typical of the Scytalidium synanamorph (S. dimidiatum). The formation of the pycnidia, which at maturity, expressed conidia. The patient was started on topical itraconazole one hourly and topical atropine thrice a day. The patient was lost to follow up hence we are not able to comment on the final outcome of the patient.