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Introduction to Clinical Mycology

Part 2



Nonseptate Hyphae

Slide 10

January 2012

This is the example of nonseptate hyphae. These hyphae are large. They transport nutrients to the body of the fungus but there are no septations and so if one of these hyphae happens to break apart, all of the nutrients will leak out. The cytoplasm leaks out. The whole entire hyphal strand will become nonviable. And this brings up a point about culturing which is not discussed at this point but I will just tell you anyway and that is that, if a patient happens to have an infection that you suspect is caused by Zygomycete, you need to let the laboratory know about that because in some laboratories the tissue is ground up and processed in that manner before it is cultured. If it happens to contain a Zygomycete, all of those hyphae will be destroyed, the cytoplasm will leak out and everything will be rendered nonviable and you will never recover the organism. So then if you suspect Zygomycetes there, the clinician tells you that , then you can cut up some small pieces of tissue or whatever it happens to be and culture those and hopefully, you will get a viable segment of an organism in there that will grow so you can identify the organism.

Nonseptate Hyphae
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