Chrysosporium

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This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (May 2007)

Chrysosporium is a type of hyaline hyphomycetes (fungi).

Their colonies are moderately fast growing, flat, white to tan to beige in colour; they often with a powdery or granular surface texture. Hyaline, one-celled (ameroconidia) are produced directly on vegetative hyphae by non-specialized conidiogenous cells. Conidia are typically pyriform to clavate with truncate bases (6 to 7 by 3.5 to 4 um) and are formed either intercalary (arthroconidia), laterally (often on pedicels), or terminally.

[edit] Clinical Significance

Species of Chrysosporium are occasionally isolated from skin and nail scrapings, especially from feet, but, because they are common soil saprotrophs, they are usually considered as contaminants. There are about 22 species of Chrysosporium, several are keratinophilic with some also being thermotolerant, and cultures may closely resemble some dermatophytes, especially Trichophyton mentagrophytes, and some strains may also resemble cultures of Histoplasma and Blastomyces.