Airborne viable, non-viable, and allergenic fungi in a rural agricultural area of India: a 2-year study at five outdoor sampling stations

• Published in: The Science of the total environment 2004-06, Vol.326 (1), p.123-141
• Main Authors: Adhikari, Atin, Sen, Moon M., Gupta-Bhattacharya, Swati, Chanda, Sunirmal
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aerobiology; Agriculture; Air microbiology; Air Pollutants - analysis; Air. Soil. Water. Waste. Feeding; Airborne fungi; Allergens - analysis; Allergy; Alternaria alternata; Antigens, Fungal - analysis; Applied sciences; Aspergillus flavus; Aspergillus fumigatus; Aspergillus japonicus; Atmospheric pollution; Bioaerosol; Biological and medical sciences; Cladosporium cladosporioides; Curvularia; Curvularia pallescens; Environment. Living conditions; Environmental Monitoring; Exact sciences and technology; Fungi - immunology; Fungi - isolation & purification; Fungi - pathogenicity; Fusarium roseum; India; Medical sciences; Pollutants physicochemistry study: properties, effects, reactions, transport and distribution; Pollution; Population Dynamics; Public health. Hygiene; Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine; Rhizopus nigricans; Rural area; Spores
• ISSN: 0048-9697; 1879-1026
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2003.12.007

The information on airborne allergenic fungal flora in rural agricultural areas is largely lacking. Adequate information is not available to the bioaerosol researchers regarding the choice of single versus multiple sampling stations for the monitoring of both viable and non-viable airborne fungi. There is no long-term study estimating the ratios of viable and non-viable fungi in the air and earlier studies did not focus on the fractions of airborne allergenic fungi with respect to the total airborne fungal load. To fill these knowledge gaps, volumetric paired assessments of airborne viable and non-viable fungi were performed in five outdoor sampling stations during two consecutive years in a rural agricultural area of India. Samples were collected at 10-day intervals by the Burkard Personal Slide Sampler and the Andersen Two-Stage Viable Sampler. The data on the concentrations of total and individual fungal types from five stations and 2 different years were analyzed and compared by statistical methods. The allergenicity of the prevalent airborne viable fungi was estimated by the skin-prick tests of >100 rural allergy patients using the antigenic fungal extracts from isolates collected with the Andersen sampler. The ranges of total fungal spore concentration were 82–2365 spores per cubic meter of air (spores/m 3) in the first sampling year and 156–2022 spores/m 3 in the second sampling year. The concentration ranges of viable fungi were 72–1796 colony-forming units per cubic meter of air (CFU/m 3) in the first sampling year and 155–1256 CFU/m 3 in the second sampling year. No statistically significant difference was observed between the total spore data of the 2 years, however, the data between five stations showed a significant difference ( P