Acremonium is a genus of fungi in the family Hypocreaceae. It used to be known as Cephalosporium.

Description

Acremonium species are usually slow-growing and are initially compact and moist. Their hyphae are fine and hyaline, and produce mostly simple phialides. Their conidia are usually one-celled (i.e. ameroconidia), hyaline or pigmented, globose to cylindrical, and mostly aggregated in slimy heads at the apex of each phialide. Epichloë species are closely related and were once included in Acremonium, but were later split off into a new genus Neotyphodium, which has now been restructured within the genus Epichloë.

Clinical significance

The genus Acremonium contains about 100 species, of which most are saprophytic, being isolated from dead plant material and soil. Many species are recognized as opportunistic pathogens of human and animals, causing eumycetoma, onychomycosis, and hyalohyphomycosis. Infections of humans by fungi of this genus are rare, but clinical manifestations of hyalohyphomycosis caused by Acremonium may include arthritis, osteomyelitis, peritonitis, endocarditis, pneumonia, cerebritis, and subcutaneous infection. The cephalosporins, a class of β-lactam antibiotics, were derived from Acremonium. It was first isolated as an antibiotic by the Italian pharmacologist Giuseppe Brotzu in 1948.

Species