Life Sciences Commons^™

The Human Gut Mycobiome: Pitfalls And Potentials — A Mycologist's Perspective, Mallory J. Suhr, Heather E. Hallen-Adams

Department of Food Science and Technology: Faculty Publications

We have entered the Age of the Microbiome, with new studies appearing constantly and whole journals devoted to the human microbiome. While bacteria outnumber other gut microbes by orders of magnitude, eukaryotes are consistently found in the human gut, and are represented primarily by the fungi. Compiling 36 studies spanning from 1917 to 2015, we found at least 267 distinct fungal taxa have been reported from the human gut, and seemingly every new study includes one or more fungi not previously described from this niche. This diversity, while impressive, is illusory. If we examine gut fungi, we will quickly observe …

Fungi Inhabiting The Healthy Human Gastrointestinal Tract: A Diverse And Dynamic Community, Heather E. Hallen-Adams, Stephen D. Kachman, Jaehyoung Kim, Ryan Legge, Inés Martínez

Department of Food Science and Technology: Faculty Publications

Fungal DNA was selectively amplified, and the ITS region sequenced, from fecal samples taken from 45 healthy human volunteers at one (21 volunteers) or two (24 volunteers) time points. Seventy-two operational taxonomic units, representing two phyla and ten classes of fungi, were recovered. Candida yeasts, notably C. tropicalis (present in 51 samples), and yeasts in the Dipodascaceae (39 samples), dominated, while 38 OTUs were detected in a single sample each. Fungi included known human symbionts (Candida, Cryptococcus, Malassezia and Trichosporon spp.), common airborne fungi (Cladosporium sp.) and fungi known to be associated with food ( …