Feline fungus joins new species list

(Left) A cat with a swollen eye due to a fungal granuloma in its eye socket.
(Right) The same cat after being successfully treated.
The disease has only a 15 percent survival rate.

A new species of fungus that causes life-threatening infections in humans and cats has been discovered by a University of Sydney researcher.

"This all originated from spotting an unusual fungal infection in three cats I was seeing at the University's cat treatment centre in 2006," said Dr Vanessa Barrs, from the University's Faculty of Veterinary Science, whose findings have just been published in PLOS One.

"These cats presented with a tumour-like growth in one of their eye sockets, that had spread there from the nasal cavity. The fungal spores are inhaled and in susceptible cats they establish a life-threatening infection that is very difficult to treat."

Six years of investigation followed, including working with some of the world's leading fungal experts at the CBS-KNAW fungal biodiversity centre in The Netherlands.

"Finally I was able to confirm this as a completely new species, Aspergillus felis, which can cause virulent disease in humans and cats by infecting their respiratory tract. We were able to demonstrate that this was a new species of fungus on a molecular and reproductive level and in terms of its form.

"Similar to the closely related fungus Aspergillus fumigates, this new species of fungus can reproduce both asexually and sexually - and we discovered both phases of the fungus."

Since the first sighting of the new species, more than 20 sick domestic cats from around Australia and one cat from the United Kingdom have been diagnosed with the fungus.

The fungus appears to infect otherwise healthy cats but in the two humans identified it attacked an already highly compromised immune system.

The disease is not passed between humans and cats but its study in cats will not only help their treatment but provide a good model for the study of the disease in people. There is only a 15 percent survival rate of cats with the disease and it has so far proved fatal in humans. To date only one case has been identified in a dog.

"We are right at the start of recognising the diseases caused by this fungus in animals and humans. The number of cases may be increasing in frequency or it may just be we are getting better at recognising them," Dr Barrs said.

"Fungi like Aspergillus felis can be easily misidentified as the closely related fungus Aspergillus fumigatus, which is a well-studied cause of disease in humans. However, A. felis is intrinsically more resistant to antifungal drugs than A. fumigatus and this has important implications for therapy and prognosis."

The next step for Dr Barrs and her team is studying fungi in culture collections throughout Australia to determine the prevalence of A. felis infections in people with previously diagnosed aspergillosis. They will collaborate with researchers at the Westmead Millenium Institute for Medical Research.

University reveals secrets of 200-year-old spiders

It's an arachnophobe's nightmare: in the bowels of the University of Sydney's Macleay Museum, there are more than 1100 vials of spiders collected in the 19th and 20th centuries.

In a recent free public talk on Wednesday 29 May, arachnologist Helen Smith, Macleay Miklouho-Maclay Fellow 2011-12 at the Macleay Museum and Research Associate at the Australian Museum, took her audience on a journey through the collection, part of the oldest natural history collection in Australia.

Because of the collection's antiquity, the Macleay's spiders come with their fair share of mysteries - why, for example, are small, common spiders underrepresented in the collection when there are so many large spiders? What happened to some important specimens that have gone missing in the collection? Why have we changed the way we collect and store spiders over time?

Now a self-confessed spider nut, one reason Helen actually began studying spiders was to prevent her from developing a fear of them.

"I was always into creepy crawlies, even as a kid, but when I moved to Australia from England I got a little bit freaked by the fact I knew there were things here that were dangerous, but I didn't know what they were," she says.

"So I started looking at spiders as a way of addressing my need to know, because I wasn't prepared to be scared by something that I knew intrinsically I shouldn't be scared of, and that I hadn't been scared of before."

The Macleay's spider collection is significant in the study of Australian natural history, and contains several 'type specimens', which are used as reference specimens when a new species is described.

"It's significant because there's a lot of old material from the very early collectors. There's a big focus on old material collected by the Macleay family and people who collected for them," Helen says.

"You get a story about how people collected and what they were looking for, which is quite different from what we do today in modern collections."

Helen's interest in the Macleay collection started during her PhD, when she had difficulty finding a type specimen needed for her research within the collection. As part of her Macleay Miklouho-Maclay Fellowship, granted by the Macleay Museum, she has now catalogued the entire wet collection to make it more searchable and accessible for future research.

She is also naming a previously undescribed spider she has discovered after the Macleay Museum.

The Macleay Miklouho-Maclay Fellowship is named in honour of the scientific friendship of William John Macleay, for whom the Macleay Museum is named, and Russian biologist and ethnographer Nikolai Nikolaivitch Miklouho-Maclay. The Fellowship is awarded annually for study on the collection within the interests of Miklouho-Maclay and WJ Macleay. Applications for this year's fellowship close on 1 July.

The Fellowship is funded by contributions from a large number of donors in 1988, the centenary year of the Macleay Museum.