An unlucky “mushroom hunter” from eastern India has become the first person known to be infected with a fungal disease that normally affects plants. Chondrostereum purpureum is a fungus which causes the progressive and oft-fatal disease “silver leaf”, which affects the leaves and wood of certain trees including those of apples, apricots, cherries and plums — as well as hawthorns, roses and poplars. According to the Royal Horticultural Society, the fungus infects the plants through wounds, causing a silvering of the leaves followed by death of the branch. The human patient, meanwhile, experienced enduring influenza-like symptoms and was found to have developed a pus-filled abscess in the lymph nodes to the right of his windpipe.
The world-first case was formally described by gynaecologist Dr Soma Dutta and pathologist Dr Ujjwayini Ray of the Consultant Apollo Multispecialty Hospitals, Kolkata.
They explained: “A 61-year-old male patient from the eastern region of India presented to the outpatient department with hoarseness of voice, cough, recurrent pharyngitis [that is, a sore throat], fatigue, difficulty in swallowing and anorexia for the last three months.
“He had no history of diabetes, HIV infection, renal or any chronic disease, immunosuppressive drug intake, or trauma.
“The patient, a plant mycologist by profession, was working with decaying material, mushrooms and various plant fungi for a long time as part of his research activities.
“Recurrent exposure to the decaying material may be the cause of this rare infection.
“This fungal infection was evident from macroscopic and microscopic morphology but the nature of infection, potentiality to disseminate etc. could not be ascertained.”
According to the physicians, the abscess in the man’s neck was revealed by CT scan, allowing it to be “aspirated” — or drained — in a subsequent procedure.
X-rays taken of the man’s chest came back normal, and following the complete draining of the pus and identification of the pathogen from such, the patient was administered a course of antifungal medications.
The researchers noted: “After two years of follow-up, the patient was absolutely fine and there is no evidence of recurrence.”
Identifying C. purpureum as the cause of the man’s illness, however, proved to be a somewhat complicated task.
The researchers explained: “Conventional techniques (microscopy and culture) failed to identify the fungus.
“Only by [DNA] sequencing could the identity of this unusual pathogen be revealed.”
“It was sent to the ‘WHO collaborating Centre for Reference & Research on Fungi of Medical importance’ in India. It was identified as Chondrostereum purpureum by DNA sequencing.
“The patient denied having worked with such a plant pathogen but he confirmed that he was working with decaying material and other plant fungi.”
Drs Dutta and Ray concluded: “Among the millions of fungi present in the environment only a few hundreds of fungi are able to infect humans and animals.
“That animal and human diseases can be caused by plant pathogens is a new concept that raises serious questions regarding the propensity of such infection to occur in healthy as well as immunocompromised individuals.
“The cross-kingdom pathogenicity demands much work to be done in order to explore insights of the mechanisms involved, thus leading to possible recommendations to control and contain these infections.”
The full findings of the study were published in the journal Medical Mycology Case Reports.
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