TY - JOUR T1 - Biodiversity and inflammatory properties of Aspergillus section Versicolores - what flood has to do with it? JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J DO - 10.1183/13993003.congress-2019.PA2836 VL - 54 IS - suppl 63 SP - PA2836 AU - Maja Šegvić Klarić AU - Daniela Jakšić AU - Sándor Kocsubé Y1 - 2019/09/28 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/54/suppl_63/PA2836.abstract N2 - Aspergilli section Versicolores are among the most frequent primary fungal colonizers of damp indoors, known to produce mycotoxin sterigmatocystin (STC). These Aspergilli dominated among Aspergillus species isolated from air and dust sampled in flood affected homes (Gunja, Croatia) and control houses (Gornji Stupnik, Croatia). In the present study we investigated: a) biodiversity of the Aspergillus section Versicolores isolates based on partial calmodulin sequences and b) pro-inflammatory effects (ELISA) of STC vs STC-producing Aspergilli using THP-1 macrophage-like cells.Most of the Versicolores isolates were from the flood affected area (91/125). A. jensenii and A. creber were the most frequent species (31 % and 30 %, respectively) followed by A. puulaauensis (10 %), A. protuberus (9 %), A. tennesseensis (6 %), A. sydowii (5 %), A. amoenus (3 %), A. venenatus (2 %), A. fructus (1.6 %), A. griseoaurantiacus (1 %) and A. pepii (1 %). As A. creber was among the most frequent species it was chosen for experiments on THP-1 cells. Subcytotoxic concentrations of STC (0.1 and 1 µM) and A. creber extract containing the same concentrations of STC showed different inflammatory effect in THP-1 cells; STC induced significant concentration-dependent increase of IL-1β, IL-6 and IL-8 and decrease of TNF-α, while A. creber did not significantly affect cytokine levels compared to control (0.1% DMSO). Differences in inflammatory effects of single STC and A. creber may be explained by the presence of other metabolites in the extract which might have antagonised STC.This work has been fully supported by Croatian Science Foundation under the project MycotoxA (IP-09-2014-5982).FootnotesCite this article as: European Respiratory Journal 2019; 54: Suppl. 63, PA2836.This is an ERS International Congress abstract. No full-text version is available. Further material to accompany this abstract may be available at www.ers-education.org (ERS member access only). ER -