Statistical survey on Japanese pathological autopsy cases revealed the incidence of deep fungus infections have been increased predominantly in recent years, and the vast majority of the infections in Japan were determined as opportunistic infections such as candidiasis and aspergillosis. Increased tendency of the cases with severe and multiferous patterns of the infections was pointed out. The incidence might be more increased with much attention to the infections and more careful study. The author's previous studies on various experimental fungus infections and diagnostic procedures such as the precipitin reaction using infected tissue extracts, fluorochrome stain, and fluorescent antibody technic were reviewed. Although an accurate histopathological pathogenetic genus diagnosis for the most of the deep fungus infections in Japan could be expected, the importance of the culture study and needs for the accumulations of precise knowledge on the tissue phase of fungi were also stressed. The morbid anatomical findings of candidiasis and aspergillosis were briefly reviewed. Special stress was layed on histological study on stainability, size, form, and microspectrophotometrical measurement of secondary fluorescence of fungus cells in tissue could be a reliable clue for the evaluation of the viability of fungal cells in infected tissue. The pathogenesis of opportunistic fungus infections was discussed from the basis of our investigations on fungal flora of the lung and the digestive canal and related studies, and concluded tha topportunistic fungas infection could be assumed as a terminal infectionof severely diseased, and the occurrence was commonly determined as a partial phenomenon of multiple infection with opportunistic bacteria, virus, and protozoa. Necessity of such understanding for the clinical diagnosis and treatment and pathological study was pointed out.

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Fusaria contain many important plant pathogens, especially soil-borne pathogens. They hardly exist in uncultivated forest soils, but do exist abundantly in cultivated soils. Fusarium oxysporum is a famous species containing important pathogens of crops. Their infective hosts are confined respectively and the pathogenic characteristics are distinguished from each other by forma specialis names attached to F. oxysporum. More than 30 formae speciales (f. sp.) of F. oxysporum were reported to occur in Japan. Fusarium solani, most frequently isolated from corneal ulcer, was reported to contain plant pathogenic 9 f. sp. and 2 races in Japan and U. S. A. Each of them is characteristic not only in its special pathogenicity to plant, but also in some characters as the morphology of macroconidia and the independent mating population. There exist also many non-pathogenic fusaria, which are miscellaneous in their morphology of macroconidia, in the environment of human life; air, water and soils. Our laboratory preserves 16 fusaria (F. oxysporum 3, F. solani 12, F. nivale 1) isolated from corneal ulcer and nail ulcer, which were sent from various districts of Japan for species identification. Many isolates of the above man pathogenic F. solani do not coincide in their morphology of macroconidia with plant pathogenic 9 f. sp. and 2 races of the same species, and show miscellaneous morphologies. This fact suggests that the man pathogenic fusaria are composed of various lines and might be the opportunistic infection fungi.

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Since the early 1960's when the aflatoxins were discovered, fungal contamination of foods has increasingly attracted the attention of food microbiologists in the world. As a causative agent of food spoilage, the fungal growth on the foods is rather distinguished from that of bacteria in the following physiological factors: 1) oxygen tension, 2) growth rate, 3) temperature, 4) moisture requirement, and 5) hydrogen-ion concentration (pH). Most raw foods are primarily exposed to fungal inoculum in the natural field. In the case of agricultural crops, sources of the primary populations of the fungi can be divided into plant and its environment such as soil. Especially important are species of Alternaria, Chaetomium, Cladosporium, Curvularia, Drechslera, Epicoccum, Fusarium, Nigrospora, Pithomyces, Trichoderma, and Ulocladium, as well as some of Aspergillus and Penicillium. The primary invaders frequently survive during handling and processing of the foods, although secondary contamination may come from equipment, from packaging materials and from personnel. Because of the survival of fungi introduced from the environmental sources, more adequate assessment for the primary contamination of the foods will possibly be needed.

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Tradional fermented foods such as Sake, Miso and Soy-sauce are manufactured adopting the enzymes of Aspergillus oryzae and in coopration with the fermentation of yeasts and lactic acid bacteria. Since the manufacturing process go into operation under open system, contamination of various kinds of fungi and bacteria are unavoidable. 1. In Koji making process, growth of Asp. oryzae or miscellaneous fungi, wild yeasts and bacteria are controlled by moisture contents (more exactly by water activity) of Koji-substrate, temperature and also by mutual competition of each other. 2. In saline enviroment of Miso and Soy-sauce fermentation, only halophilic (salt tolerant) yeasts such as Saccharomyces rouxii or Torulopsis and lactic acid bacteria such as Pediococcus halophilus propagate. 3. Serious contaminating microorganisms in Sake or beer brewing are wild yeasts such as Hansenula, Pichia, Endomycopsis, Debaryomyces, Candida, Rhodotorula, Trichosporon, Torulopsis and Killer yeast strains. 4. For the most part of the above mentioned contaminating microorganisms originated from the air-borne fungi in enviroment of brewery. For example, Aspergillus, Penicillium, Mucor, Rhizopus, Aureobasidium, Cladosporium, Botrytis, Monilia and Fusarium assume predominance in the air of Sake, beer, wine, Miso and Soy-sauce factories.

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The slide-cultured mycelium of Absidia cylindrospora was stained brightly by either a direct or an indirect immunofluorescence staining method using FITC-conjugated rabbit anti-ACE immunoglobulin. The paraffin-sections of Mucor hiemalis, and Rhizopus nigricans exhibited fluorescence as well as that of A. cylindrospora by the same methods. These facts indicated that immunological cross-reactivity exist among these organisms. An uniformly distribution of the fluorescence was observed on the younger and older hyphae of A. cylindrospora, and the sporangiospores were also stained with the fluorescent conjugate.

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The inhibitory action of sulfamethoxazole (SMX) and trimethoprim (TMP), alone and in combination, against Nocardia both in vitro and in experimental infection in mice was evaluated.
In vitro activities of the combination of SMX and TMP were investigated using a checker board titration technic, disk diffusion method and agar dilution method. SMX in combination with TMP was more effective against Nocardia than either SMX or TMP alone. The most remarkable potentiation of SMX by TMP was found in SMX-TMP ratio of 1:1.
The combination of SMX-TMP was also more effective in therapy of mice that had been infected with N. asteroides than was either SMX or TMP used alone; administrations of the combination resulted in increasing the number of surviving mice and the mean survival days.

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The dermatophytes flora and the some epidemiological results surveyed at the Dermatological Clinic of Akita University Hospital for the five years from 1972 to 1976 are as follows: 1) In this period, the total number of 666 patients (778 cases) with dermatophytosis, confirmed by mycological examinations, were obtained. The yearly incidences of the subjects to the all outpatients were ranging from 7.03% to 9.59% (averaged 7.93%), it seems tend to increase barely. 2) Positive incidences in culture by disease type represented 79.0% in tinea pedis, 83.9% in tinea glabrosa and 45.8% in tinea unguium. 3) The 591 positive cases consisted of 339 tinea pedis, 203 tinea cruris et corporis and 49 tinea unguium. 4) The species and numbers of isolated strain were 407 of T. rubrum, 168 of T. mentagrophytes, 10 of E. floccosum and each two of M. gypseum, T. violaceum and T. verrucosum. 5) The frequencies of T. rubrum and T. mentagrophytes isolated were 54.3% and 44.8% in tinea pedis et manuum, 89.2% and 3.9% in tinea glabrosa, 83.7% and 16.3% in tinea unguium respectively. 6) The concurrence of two or three types of dermatophytosis was noted in 84 patients of which the patient of tinea pedis associated with tinea unguium was mostly common, and T. rubrum as causative organism was cultured in the large majority of them. 7) T. rubrum was more isolated than T. mentagrophytes year after year, so that the isolation ratio of T. rubrum to T. mentagrophytes showed the tendency to increase slightly. 8) None of tinea capitis and deep-seated dermatophytosis was observed for these five years.

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Econazole-induced leakage of intracellular K⁺, 260nm-absorbing materials and proteins from Candida albicans protoplasts and Escherichia coli protoplasts in the presence of osmotic stabilizer. The antimycotic was also effective in inducing release of hemoglobin from human erythrocytes. The extent of K⁺ release from fungal and bacterial protoplasts increased with increasing drug concentrations. Econazole-induced release of K⁺ from Candida protoplasts and hemoglobin from human erythrocytes was antagonized by human serum and egg lecithin. It is suggested from these results that econazole directly interacts with susceptible cell membranes, leading to leakage of various cellular constituents, and that this imidazole drug has the avidity not only for fungal cell membranes but also for bacterial and mammalian cell membranes.

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A 39-year-old man with tinea barbae due to Trichophyton rubrum was reported. Causative fungi from 4 out of 5 patients with this condition who were treated in our Hospital from 1972 to August 1978 were Trichophyton rubrum and those from 31 cases reviewed from the recent Japanese literatures were mostly the same fungus. Using indirect immunofluorescent staining with antiserum to Arthroderma benhamiae, fungus elements were easily demonstrated in the dermis of routinely processed tissue specimens.

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The feature of this arteritis is granulomatous, shows no fibrinoid change, and is confined to the coronary arteritis. These characteristics of arteritis are quite similar to those found in the patient with Kawasaki disease, however, the mechanism of nosogenesis has not been cleared. In this paper, the etiological agent of this coronary arteritis was studied by using of different inoculums and was suspected as follows: (1) the agent producing this arteritis is the substance composing Candida cells, (2) it is resistant to heating at 100°C for one hour, but is inactivated by 18% ethyl alcohol, (3) there is a variation of pathogenicity among the different strains or species of Candida.

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Biological and serological method were compared for identification of 42 strain of Candida isolated from 42 cases of cutaneous candidiasis. The experiments gave the following results. 31 of 42 strains (74%) could be identified by the serological method, 39 of 42 strain (93%) by the biological method, but the rest remained unidentified. Except spontaneously agglutinated strains, serological identification rate was 91%, which is similar to that of the biological method. 26 of 42 strains (62%) were identified as the same species by biological and serological method. The agreement rate of two method (regarding identification of Candida albicans) gave very high percentage (96%), suggesting that combined use of serological and biological method would be desirable since the detection of chlamydospores are sometimes unstable.

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