Silver leaf disease is a scourge of plants from pears to roses. Chondrostereum purpureum can infect leaves and branches if not treated promptly.
Apart from the rare risk of losing a rose bush, fungal disease has not been considered a problem for people until now.
The 61-year-old Indian mycologist, the first reported case of its kind, researchers suggest, appears to have developed a rather severe case of silver leaf disease in his throat. A great leap between all the kingdoms on the tree of life.
A recently published case study describes a male patient presenting to a medical center in eastern India with cough, hoarseness, fatigue and difficulty swallowing. A CT scan of his neck showed a pus-filled abscess near his windpipe.
Lab tests did not find any bacteria of concern, but a special staining technique for fungi revealed the presence of long, root-like filaments called hyphae.
Although there are millions of known species, fungal diseases are not common in humans, but only a few of them can harm us.
Sometimes, especially in people with weakened immune systems, fungi that normally feed on decaying plants can infect deeper parts of our body.
However, this particular infection was unlike any of its predecessors, prompting medical professionals to seek advice from a WHO fungal research and reference center that identified the unlikely suspect from his DNA.
Although he was a mycologist himself, the patient did not recall working with this particular strain recently. Fieldwork brought him into contact with decaying matter and other plant fungi, which may explain the source of his infection.
Pathogens of any kind need the right tools to survive and reproduce within a host. Not only does he need a way to provide the right nutrients, but also some tricks to deal with an essentially hostile environment that is determined to tear him apart with all kinds of chemical weapons and deadly agents.
Because of this, it is very rare for fungi to adapt to run their hyphae through leaves and stems to do the same thing inside our flesh. Further complicating the situation is the fact that the patient in this case study was taking immunosuppressive drugs or had a fully functioning immune system with no signs of HIV, diabetes or any chronic disease.
“Human pathogens and potential plant reservoirs across the kingdom have major implications for the emergence of infectious diseases,” the study’s authors wrote in their report.
While bacterial strains of superviruses and new viruses emerging from animal populations regularly draw our attention, we rarely think about plant diseases among us.
Despite its rarity, it is a place worth seeing. Fungi pose a particularly large risk – similarities to fungal and animal biochemistry make designing appropriate vaccines and treatments that can prevent or treat infections a real challenge.
Fortunately, regular draining of the ulcer with an antifungal agent for two months worked in this case. After a two-year follow-up, the patient was still doing well and showed no signs of recurrent infection.
We probably don’t know why such infections took root by chance, and don’t know if we’ll ever see such infections again.
This research was published in Medical Mycology Case Reports.
Source: ScienceAlert
Source: Arabic RT
