Lobomycosis is a dermal mycosis, presenting nodular, keloid-like, single or multiple, cutaneous diffuse lesions on the skin of affected patients.
More...Lobomycosis is a dermal mycosis, presenting nodular, keloid-like, single or multiple, cutaneous diffuse lesions on the skin of affected patients. Since the report of the first case, in 1931, described by Dr. Jorge Lobo in an Amazonian rubber tapper, this disease was thought to be restricted to humans living at the Amazon Region. However, in 1971, the first case in an Atlantic bottle-nosed dolphin was described, and in 2008 the first two autochthonous African cases were described. During the last decade, it became clear that lobomycosis is an emerging human and dolphin disease, not restricted to the Amazon Region, and possibly related to environmental stressors, which could lead to the death of some dolphins. The inability to cultivate the causative agent of lobomycosis impaired research on the biology of the fungus, creating different nomenclatures over the years, varying from Glenosporella loboi, through Paracoccidioides loboi (Fonseca Filho & Arêa Leão, 1940), and more recently Lacazia loboi; on the classification of the disease, leading to terms as lobomycosis like-disease (LLD); and on the development of new drugs, resulting in the absence of a drug-of-choice for the treatment of lobomycosis. We cultivated this fungus in vitro, and based on its in vitro and in vivo behavior, on cellular biology data and on the complete genome sequence assembly of one of our strains it is possible to conclude that Lacazia loboi is related in fact to the another already know genera Candida under the phylum Ascomycota, and therefore, based on our complete genome data, the new nomenclature Candida loboi is proposed.
LDI48194 is an isolate from a lobomycosis case. The strain was submitted for DNA extraction one week after isolation and purification from human biopsy material, presenting globose and spherical or lemon-shaped, hyaline, yeast-like cells (8 to 11 um in diameter), with thick walls, which can be strongly stained by the Groccot-methenamine silver stain or calcofluor white fluorescent technique. Fungal cells were isolated, grouped or in chains, the latter were linked at one or more points by thin tubular connections, a characteristic attributed to L. loboi in parasitism.. Less...