Ajellomycetaceae

Fungalpedia – Note 2812, Ajellomycetaceae

 

Ajellomycetaceae. Unter., J.A. Scott & Sigler.

Citation when using this data: Kandemir H et al. 2022 – Fungalpedia.

Index Fungorum, Facesoffungi, MycoBank, GenBank

Classification: Incertae sedis, Incertae sedis, Incertae sedis, Incertae sedis, Pezizomycotina, Ascomycota, Fungi 

The family Ajellomycetaceae is based on the genus Ajellomyces, which was described for several sexual states of members of this family. Many Ajellomycetaceae members are causative agents of systemic diseases in mammals. The type species of Ajellomyces is Ajellomyces dermatitidis, the sexual state of Blastomyces dermatitidis, the main agent of human and canine blastomycosis. Other Ajellomyces species have been found by in vitro mating in Histoplasma, Emergomyces (formerly Emmonsia) and Helicocarpus. Today, separate sexual names have been abandoned, and the genus Ajellomyces has become superfluous.

Clade 10 contains thermally dimorphic fungi, including Blastomyces (type species
B. dermatitidis; Gilchrist and Stokes 1898), Emergomyces (type species E. pasteurianus; Dukik et al. 2017), Emmonsiellopsis (type species E. terrestris; Marin-Felix et al. 2015), Helicocarpus (type species H. griseus; Marin-Felix et al. 2015), Histoplasma (type species H. capsulatum; Darling 1906), and Paracoccidioides (type species P. brasiliensis; Almeida 1930). Another genus, Emmonsia (type species E. parva; Ciferri and Montemartini 1959), was also described in Ajellomycetaceae, but later, the species of this genus were reclassified into Blastomyces and Emergomyces based on the results of multiphasic approaches, including multilocus sequencing and morphological and physiological data (Jiang et al. 2018, 2020).

Lacazia loboi was described with the basionym Paracoccidioides loboi, which was invalidly published (Taborda et al. 1999a). The phylogenetic position of L. loboi was found amidst Paracoccidioides species. Although phylogenetically close, the process of yeast cell formation in tissue is different in the two genera, i.e., unilateral versus multilateral. In addition, Lacazia contains melanin in its cell wall (Taborda et al. 1999b) and causes only (sub)cutaneous infections, whereas Paracoccidioides does not contain melanin and is an agent of disseminated infections (Taborda et al. 1999a). All available records of L. loboi were obtained from tissue samples, since the fungus has not been cultured in vitro. Although the histological features of lobomycosis in humans and dolphins are similar, the fungus was reported to differ in morphology between the two hosts (Haubold et al. 2000). In the present study, Lacazia clustered with Paracoccidioides (with > 88% ITS identity), but the phylogenetic distance between the genera remained significant. In accordance with the available data (Cowan 1993; Simose-Lopes et al. 1993; Haubold et al. 1998, 2000; Taborda et al. 1999a; Esperón et al. 2012; Schaefer et al. 2016), the etiological agents of lobomycosis in humans and dolphins are likely to be different species. Vilela and Mendoza (2018) proposed the name Paracoccidioides brasiliensis var. cetii to describe the uncultivated fungus causing cutaneous disease in dolphins and used the name L. loboi to describe the etiological agents of the same disease in humans. Recently, Vilela et al. (2021) accepted Paracoccidioides brasiliensis var. ceti as Paracoccidioides cetii and Lacazia loboi as Paracoccidioides loboi. Several ITS sequences from dolphins (AF035674 and AF035675) and plants (GU361967 and FJ037740) were recorded in GenBank as L. loboi but might be considered contaminants or misidentifications.

Type genus: Ajellomyces McDonough & A.L. Lewis, Mycologia 60(1): 77 (1968).

Other accepted species: Species Fungorum – search Ajellomycetaceae.

 

References

Almeida FD 1930 – Differences between the etiological agents of coccidioidal granuloma in the United States and in Brazil. New genus for the Brazilian fungus. Comptes Rendus des Séances de la Société de Biologie 105:315–316.

Ciferri R, Montemartini A 1959 – Taxonomy of Haplosporangium parvum. Mycopathologia et Mycologia Applicata 10(4):303–316.

Cowan DF 1993 – Lobo’s disease in a bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) from Matagorda Bay, Texas. Journal of Wildlife Diseases 29:488–489.

Darling ST 1906 – A protozoön general infection producing pseudotubercles in the lungs and focal necrosis in the liver, spleen and lymph nodes. JAMA 46:1283–1285.

Dukik K, de Hoog GS, Stielow JB, Freeke J, van den Ende BG, Vicente VA, Menken SBJ, Ahmed SA 2020 – Molecular and phenotypic characterization of Nannizzia (Arthrodermataceae). Mycopathologia 185(1):9–35.

Esperón F, García-Párraga D, Bellière EN, Sánchez-Vizcaíno JM 2012 – Molecular diagnosis of lobomycosis-like disease in a bottlenose dolphin in captivity. Medical Mycology 50(1):106–109.

Gilchrist C, Stokes WR 1898 – A case of pseudolupus vulgaris caused by a Blastomyces. Journal of Experimental Medicine 3:53–78.

Haubold EM, Aronson JF, Cowan DF, McGinnis MR, Cooper CR Jr 1998 – Isolation of fungal rDNA from bottlenose dolphin skin infected with Loboa loboi. Medical Mycology 36(5):263–267.

Haubold EM, Cooper CR Jr, Wen JW, McGinnis MR, Cowan DF 2000 – Comparative morphology of Lacazia loboi (syn. Loboa loboi) in dolphins and humans. Medical Mycology 38(1):9–14.

Haubold EM, Cooper CR Jr, Wen JW, McGinnis MR, Cowan DF 2000 – Comparative morphology of Lacazia loboi (syn. Loboa loboi) in dolphins and humans. Medical Mycology 38(1):9–14.

Jiang Y, Dukik K, Muñoz JF, Sigler L, Schwartz IS, Govender NP, Kenyon C, Feng P, van den Ende BG, Stielow JB, Stchigel AM, Lu H, de Hoog S 2018 – Phylogeny, ecology and taxonomy of systemic pathogens and their relatives in Ajellomycetaceae (Onygenales): Blastomyces, Emergomyces, Emmonsia, Emmonsiellopsis. Fungal Diversity 90:245–291.

Jiang Y, Tsui CKM, Ahmed SA, Hagen F, Shang Z, Gerrits van den Ende AHG, Verweij PE, Lu H, de Hoog GS 2020 – Intraspecific diversity and taxonomy of Emmonsia crescens. Mycopathologia 185(4):613–627.

Marin-Felix Y, Stchigel AM, Cano-Lira JF, Sanchis M, Mayayo E, Guarro J 2015 – Emmonsiellopsis, a new genus related to the thermally dimorphic fungi of the family Ajellomycetaceae. Mycoses 58(8):451–460.

Schaefer AM, Reif JS, Guzmán EA, Bossart GD, Ottuso P, Snyder J, Medalie N, Rosato R, Han S, Fair PA, McCarthy PJ 2016 – Toward the identification, characterization and experimental culture of Lacazia loboi from Atlantic bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus). Medical Mycology 54(6):659–665.

Simose-Lopes PC, Paula GS, Both MC, Xavier FM, Scaramello AC 1993 – First case of lobomycosis in a bottlenose dolphin from southern Brazil. Marine Mammal Science 9:329–331.

Taborda PR, Taborda VA, McGinnis MR 1999a – Lacazia loboi gen. nov., comb. nov., the etiologic agent of lobomycosis. Journal of Clinical Microbiology 37(6):2031–2033.

 Taborda VBA, Taborda PRO, McGinnis MR 1999b – Constitutive melanin in the cell wall of the etiologic agent of lobomycosis. Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo 41:9–12.

Vilela R, Huebner M, Vilela C, Vilela G, Pettersen B, Oliveira C, Mendoza L 2021 – The taxonomy of two uncultivated fungal mammalian pathogens is revealed through phylogeny and population genetic analyses. Scientific Reports 11(1):18119.

Vilela R, Mendoza L 2018 – Paracoccidioidomycosis ceti (Lacaziosis/Lobomycosis) in dolphins. In: Seyedmousavi S, de Hoog GS, Guillot J, Verweij PE (eds) Emerging and epizootic fungal infections in animals. Springer, New York, pp 177–199.

 

Entry by

Hazal Kandemir, Center of Expertise in Mycology, Radboud University Medical Center/Canisius Wilhelmina Hospital, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, Division of Medical Mycology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Cukurova, Adana, Turkey 

 

Published online 25 June 2026

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