Fungal levels in houses in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant evacuation zone after the Great East Japan Earthquake

Abstract

The results suggest that residents' health could be at risk owing to the high levels of airborne fungi and toxic fungi Aspergillus section Circumdati. Therefore, monitoring and decontamination/disinfection of fungi are strongly recommended before residents are allowed to return permanently to their homes. In addition, returning to home with a certain frequency and adequate ventilation are necessary during similar situations, e.g., when residents cannot stay in their homes for a long period, because fungal levels in houses in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant evacuation zone were inversely correlated with the frequency with which residents returned to visit their houses.

Onychomycosis caused by Aspergillus subramanianii

“…The emerging etiologic species of onychomycosis include A. insulicola , A. melleus , A. ochraceopetaliformis , A. ochraceus , A. persii , A. sclerotiorum and A. westerdijkiae . The level of airborne fungi and Aspergillus section Circumdati was high in the houses involved in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in August 2012 . The excessive fungal exposure might have led to the uncommon infection during the hot summer shortly after the Kumamoto earthquake.…”

“…9 The level of airborne fungi and Aspergillus section Circumdati was high in the houses involved in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in August 2012. 15 The excessive fungal exposure might have led to the uncommon infection during the hot summer shortly after the Kumamoto earthquake. The MIC of the isolates were 0.25 lm/mL for terbinafine and efinaconazole.…”

Adaptive evolution of a melanized fungus reveals robust augmentation of radiation resistance by abrogating non‐homologous end‐joining

“…Nevertheless, many organisms have demonstrated the ability to recover from extremely high doses of IR, such that could be expected to induce hundreds of DSBs within the genome (Zhdanova et al ., 2000; Liu et al ., 2003; Ingemar et al ., 2005; Rainey et al ., 2005; Dadachova and Casadevall, 2008; Gladyshev and Meselson, 2008; Vaisnav et al ., 2014; Pacelli et al ., 2017; Schultzhaus et al ., 2019, 2020). Fungi in particular have attracted interest due to their generally high resistance to acute IR exposure (Shuryak et al ., 2017; Schultzhaus et al ., 2019; Shuryak, 2019), their apparent increased abundance in environments that are highly contaminated with IR, such as Chernobyl (Zhdanova et al ., 2000) and Fukushima (Shinohara et al ., 2017, 2018), and their ability to sequester radionuclides (White and Gadd, 1990; Haselwandter and Berreck, 1994; Steiner et al ., 2002; Dighton, 2019). The development of budding yeast as a eukaryotic model has also provided a trove of information on IR recovery (Game and Mortimer, 1974; Benathen and Beam, 1977; Game, 1983; Bennett et al ., 2001), but a lack of studies in other species has meant that many fungal‐specific resistance mechanisms remain unknown.…”

A mite allergen avoidance decreased mite-specific IgE levels and ameliorated asthma symptoms in subjects who lived in temporary housing after natural disasters

“…14 Also, various species of mites, other well-known triggers of allergy and asthma, feed on fungi, especially Alternaria alternata, Cladosporium sphaerospermun, and Wallemia sebi, 15 and levels of airborne fungi were increased inside houses in Fukushima after the earthquake. 16 Mass screening for respiratory and allergic diseases revealed a 24% prevalence of asthma among adults (age ≥ 15 years) who currently or had lived previously in temporary housing in Ishinomaki 10 ; this rate was higher than that previously reported in Japan. 17,18 Besides, 45.9% of the asthmatic residents we screened developed asthma after moving into temporary housing, which likewise exacerbated the disease in 71.4% of the participants who had previously been diagnosed with asthma.…”