A hot bed of fungal spores

If, at the end of a hard day you enjoy slipping into your bed for a good nights sleep, then beware - you may not be alone

Researchers have found that you may have to share your bed with millions of fungal spores. They dissected both feather and synthetic pillows and identified several thousand spores of fungus per gram of used pillow - more than a million spores per pillow.

Professor Ashley Woodcock who led the research said: “We know that pillows are inhabited by the house dust mite which eats fungi, and one theory is that the fungi are in turn using the house dust mites’ faeces as a major source of nitrogen and nutrition, along with human skin scales. There could therefore be a ‘miniature ecosystem’ at work inside our pillows.”
 
A four day A. fumigatus culture,
Credit: Fungal Research Trust, www.aspergillus.man.ac.uk

Aspergillus fumigatus was the species most commonly found in the pillows and is most likely to cause disease. The resulting condition - Aspergillosis - has become the leading infectious cause of death in leukaemia and bone marrow transplant patients.

Aspergillus can also worsen asthma, particularly in adults who have suffered for many years, and cause allergic sinusitis in patients with allergic tendencies.

Dr Geoffrey Scott, Chairman of the Fungal Research Trust which funded the study, told Laboratory News: “These new findings are potentially of major significance to people with allergic diseases of the lungs and damaged immune systems - especially those being sent home from hospital.”

Invasive Aspergillosis occurs mainly in the lungs and sinuses, although it can spread to other organs such as the brain, and is becoming increasingly common across other patient groups. It is very difficult to treat, and as many as 1 in 25 patients who die in modern European teaching hospitals have the disease.