Recent studies have found that the coexistence of fungi and bacteria in the airway may increase the risk of infection, contribute to the development of pneumonia, and increase the severity of disease. Interleukin 17A (IL-17A) plays important roles in host resistance to bacterial and fungal infections.

Contrary to humans, candidiasis is a rare infection in animals. However, in reptiles, candidiasis can cause gastrointestinal, cutaneous, or rarely systemic infections in stressed animals. The infections due to Yarrowia lipolytica have been increasingly described in human medicine, and hundreds of cases are reported, comprised of granulomatous lung lesions. Herein, granulomatous pneumonia of a spectacled caiman, Caiman crocodilus, was described, and the presence of Y. lipolytica in the lesion was confirmed through histopathology, microbiologic cultures, and molecular methods. The cause of death of the spectacled caiman was ascribed to bacterial shock septicemia consequentially to a traumatic lesion. However, in the right lung, several nodules containing white exudate were evidenced. At mycological and molecular analyses, Y. lipolytica was evidenced, and the histological finding confirmed the presence of a Candida infection in the lung granulomatous lesions. The comparison of ITS sequences with 11 Yarrowia spp. isolates, recently described in green sea turtles, and with a human strain was conducted, and the whole genome of a strain isolated in the spectacled caiman was sequenced. Even though Y. lipolytica is considered a non-pathogenic yeast and has been rarely described in animals, it seems to cause granulomatous lesions in reptiles as in humans.

Fungal infections are common complications of respiratory viral infections and are associated with the increased need for intensive care and elevated mortality. Data regarding microbiological and molecular characteristics of such infections in COVID-19 patients are scarce. Here, we performed a comprehensive analysis, including species identification, antifungal susceptibility testing, molecular resistance determinants analysis, typing, and retrospective clinical data review, of fungal isolates recovered from 19 COVID-19 patients, who were hospitalized at the Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC) in Hackensack, New Jersey, USA, in the initial phase of the pandemic from April–May 2020. In total, 17 Candida albicans, two C. parapsilosis, and two Aspergillus fumigatus were analyzed. All Candida spp. isolates were susceptible to micafungin and azole drugs (fluconazole, voriconazole, posaconazole, itraconazole, isavuconazole). A. fumigatus isolates were susceptible to micafungin and all triazole drugs except fluconazole (intrinsic resistance). Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) of C. albicans isolates revealed 15 different sequence types (STs), which clustered below the clade-defining limit of p-distance < 0.04. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) karyotyping revealed no chromosomal rearrangements in these isolates. A. fumigatus isolates were of different, non-related genotypes. We speculate that virus- and drug-induced immunosuppression (94.7% of the patients received corticosteroids), together with prolonged hospital stay (median duration of 29 days) and mechanical ventilation (median duration of 24 days) likely increased the susceptibility to secondary respiratory and bloodstream infections in the studied patient population. The presence of fungi in blood or respiratory tract fluid was a prognosticator for poor clinical outcome, which presented as an 89.5% 30-day mortality in our patient cohort.

Background/Aim: Fungal infections are an emerging health problem worldwide and can be caused by a broad variety of fungal pathogens. This study aimed to retrospectively determine and evaluate the fungal pathogens isolated from various clinical samples in our laboratory. Methods: A total of 996 clinical samples obtained from 803 patients who visited Karabuk University Training and Research Hospital microbiology laboratory between January 2019-December 2020 were included in this study. The BD-Phoenix 100 automated microbiology system was used for the identification of strains. Results: Among 803 patients, 52.4% were female and 47.5% were male. The median age of the patients was 76 (0-99) years. Urine (49%) and blood (27.6%) samples were evaluated the most. The most common fungal pathogen was Candida albicans (48.7%), followed by Candida tropicalis (16.5%), Candida parapsilosis (10.6%), Candida glabrata (9%), Saccharomyces cerevisiae (5.7%), and Trichosporon species (3.1%). While more than 90% of fungal strains were isolated from the inpatients, 9% were isolated from the outpatients (p