Aureobasidium pullulans

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Aureobasidium pullulans

Kingdom:	Fungi
Phylum:	Ascomycota
Class:	Dothideomycetes
Subclass:	Dothideomycetidae
Order:	Dothideales
Family:	Dothioraceae
Genus:	Aureobasidium
Species:	A. pullulans

Binomial name

Aureobasidium pullulans

Synonyms

Aureobasidium oleae
Aureobasidium pullulans
Azymocandida malicola
Candida malicola
Cladosporium pullulans
Dematium pullulans
Exobasidium vitis
Hormonema oleae
Hormonema pullulans
Pullularia fermentans
Pullularia fermentans var. schoenii
Pullularia pullulans
Torula oleae
Torula schoenii

Aureobasidium pullulans is a plant pathogen, causing stigmatomycosis. It can be cultivated on potato dextrose agar where it produces smooth, faint pink yeast-like colonies that are covered with a slimy mass of spores. Older colonies change to black due to chlamydospore production. Primary conidia are hyaline, smooth, ellipsoidal, one-celled, and variable in shape and size; secondary conidia are smaller. Conidiophores are undifferentiated, intercalary or terminal, or arising as short lateral branches. Endoconidia are produced in an intercalary cell and released into a neighboring empty cell. Hyphae are hyaline, smooth, thinwalled, with transverse septa. The fungus grows at 10 - 35 ºC with optimum growth at 30 ºC.

Chronic human exposure via humidifiers/air conditioners can lead to hypersensitivity pneumonitis (aka extrinsic allergic alveolitis) or "humidifier lung". This condition is characterized acutely by dyspnea, cough, fever, chest infiltrates, and acute inflammatory reaction. Condition can also be chronic, and lymphocyte mediated. Chronic condition is characterized radiographically by reticulonodular infiltrates in the lung, with apical sparing.