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Fungal Taxa Responsible for Mucormycosis/“Black Fungus” among COVID-19 Patients in India

Mucormycosis is caused by fungi belonging to the order Mucorales. The term “Black Fungus” has been widely applied to human pathogenic Mucorales in India. They mainly infect the sinuses and brain, lungs, stomach and intestines, and skin. While this has been considered a rare disease, thousands of cas...

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Autor principal: Divakar, Pradeep K.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8402169/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34436180
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jof7080641
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author Divakar, Pradeep K.
author_facet Divakar, Pradeep K.
author_sort Divakar, Pradeep K.
collection PubMed
description Mucormycosis is caused by fungi belonging to the order Mucorales. The term “Black Fungus” has been widely applied to human pathogenic Mucorales in India. They mainly infect the sinuses and brain, lungs, stomach and intestines, and skin. While this has been considered a rare disease, thousands of cases have been reported during the second wave of COVID-19 in India, between the months of April and June 2021. Hitherto, more than 45,374 cases and over 4300 deaths have been reported among COVID-19 patients across India from April 2021 to July 21, 2021. Though the mortality rate is estimated to be 50%, it could be above 90% if left untreated. In India, Rhizopus arrhizus has been related to be the most common species to cause human mucormycosis, followed by Apophysomyces variabilis, Rhizopus microsporus, and R. homothallicus. Accurate sample identification of human pathogenic Mucorales species is challenging especially due to the frequent lack of diagnostic morphological features. Traditionally, the culture-based approach has been extensively used to isolate and characterize human pathogenic Mucorales. However, this may not be an appropriate approach to objectively isolate and characterize all species, as the germination and growth of fungal spores are highly dependent on culture media and environmental conditions. Therefore, a robust approach to the accurate and rapid identification of human pathogenic Mucorales species is a prerequisite. The metagenomic approach comprehensively sequences and analyzes all genetic material in a complex biological sample and, consequently, this could be an appropriate approach to objectively characterize human pathogenic Mucorales taxa without the need for in vitro culture. The precise identification of the species will not only be useful for the correct diagnosis of this disease, but also for the development of antifungal drugs specific for each species. Accurate and rapid species identification is desperately needed to save lives in the mucormycosis outbreak among COVID-19 patients in India and neighboring countries.
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spelling pubmed-84021692021-08-29 Fungal Taxa Responsible for Mucormycosis/“Black Fungus” among COVID-19 Patients in India Divakar, Pradeep K. J Fungi (Basel) Opinion Mucormycosis is caused by fungi belonging to the order Mucorales. The term “Black Fungus” has been widely applied to human pathogenic Mucorales in India. They mainly infect the sinuses and brain, lungs, stomach and intestines, and skin. While this has been considered a rare disease, thousands of cases have been reported during the second wave of COVID-19 in India, between the months of April and June 2021. Hitherto, more than 45,374 cases and over 4300 deaths have been reported among COVID-19 patients across India from April 2021 to July 21, 2021. Though the mortality rate is estimated to be 50%, it could be above 90% if left untreated. In India, Rhizopus arrhizus has been related to be the most common species to cause human mucormycosis, followed by Apophysomyces variabilis, Rhizopus microsporus, and R. homothallicus. Accurate sample identification of human pathogenic Mucorales species is challenging especially due to the frequent lack of diagnostic morphological features. Traditionally, the culture-based approach has been extensively used to isolate and characterize human pathogenic Mucorales. However, this may not be an appropriate approach to objectively isolate and characterize all species, as the germination and growth of fungal spores are highly dependent on culture media and environmental conditions. Therefore, a robust approach to the accurate and rapid identification of human pathogenic Mucorales species is a prerequisite. The metagenomic approach comprehensively sequences and analyzes all genetic material in a complex biological sample and, consequently, this could be an appropriate approach to objectively characterize human pathogenic Mucorales taxa without the need for in vitro culture. The precise identification of the species will not only be useful for the correct diagnosis of this disease, but also for the development of antifungal drugs specific for each species. Accurate and rapid species identification is desperately needed to save lives in the mucormycosis outbreak among COVID-19 patients in India and neighboring countries. MDPI 2021-08-07 /pmc/articles/PMC8402169/ /pubmed/34436180 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jof7080641 Text en © 2021 by the author. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Opinion
Divakar, Pradeep K.
Fungal Taxa Responsible for Mucormycosis/“Black Fungus” among COVID-19 Patients in India
title Fungal Taxa Responsible for Mucormycosis/“Black Fungus” among COVID-19 Patients in India
title_full Fungal Taxa Responsible for Mucormycosis/“Black Fungus” among COVID-19 Patients in India
title_fullStr Fungal Taxa Responsible for Mucormycosis/“Black Fungus” among COVID-19 Patients in India
title_full_unstemmed Fungal Taxa Responsible for Mucormycosis/“Black Fungus” among COVID-19 Patients in India
title_short Fungal Taxa Responsible for Mucormycosis/“Black Fungus” among COVID-19 Patients in India
title_sort fungal taxa responsible for mucormycosis/“black fungus” among covid-19 patients in india
topic Opinion
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8402169/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34436180
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jof7080641
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