Cladosporium oxysporum is an airborne fungus that is commonly found outdoors and is distributed throughout the tropical and subtropical region, it is mostly located In Asia and Africa.^[1][2] It spreads through airborne spores and is often extremely abundant in outdoor air during the spring and summer seasons.^[3] It mainly feeds on decomposing organic matter in warmer climates,^[4][5] but can also be parasitic and feed on living plants.^[1] The airborne spores can occasionally cause cutaneous infections in humans,^[4] and the high prevalence of C. oxysporum in outdoor air during warm seasons contributes to its importance as an etiological agent of allergic disease and possibly human cutaneous phaeohyphomycosis in tropical regions.^[6][7]

Quick Facts Cladosporium oxysporum, Scientific classification ...

Cladosporium oxysporum
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Fungi
Division:	Ascomycota
Class:	Dothideomycetes
Order:	Capnodiales
Family:	Davidiellaceae
Genus:	Cladosporium
Species:	C. oxysporum
Binomial name
Cladosporium oxysporum Berk. & M.A.Curtis (1868)
Synonyms
Cladosporium subtile Rabenhort (1876)

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This species was described by Reverend Miles Joseph Berkeley and Moses Ashley Curtis in 1868 in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society.^[8]

Cladosporium oxysporum expands moderately, often floccose at the center of the fungus that consists of woolly tufts, and it can grow up to 650 μm long and 4-5 μm wide.^[4] The colony is colored olive to olive-green on top with velvety surface, and greenish black at the bottom.^[4] The conidiophores are either straight or slightly bent,^[4] and the conidia range from oval to lemon-shaped.^[9] C. oxysporum produces conidia in unbranched or branched chains arising from cylindrical base cells.^[5] After the first spores have formed on the conidiophore, they bud apically to form secondary spores.^[10] They have pores connected in very fragile chains that can fall apart at the slightest movement of air,^[11] the spores are wind-dispersed and often extremely abundant in outdoor air under warm temperature.^[3]

Cladosporium oxysporum is mostly located Asia and Africa,^[2] but it can also be found distributed throughout tropical and the subtropical regions.^[1] The fungus is commonly found on dead herbaceous and woody plants in the tropics^[5] as they are saprotrophs in warmer climates.^[4] In general, most Cladosporium species are widely distributed throughout the world In tropical and subtropical regions, and growing In soil or on organic matters.^[7] In a study conducted by Guan Et al., C. oxysporum was found to produce extracellular xylanase when grown on decaying agricultural waste.^[12] Production of extracellular xylanase was enhanced by elevated levels of Mg²⁺ ion in the soil or the surrounding environment, but inhibited by the high levels of Cu²⁺ ion.^[12] In the wild, C. oxysporum grows on hosts like Alnus, Bambusa, Citrus, Helianthus, and Pseudotsuga.^[1]

Cladosporium oxysporum is a saprobic secondary invader in warmer climates,^[4] meaning they invade and feed on organisms that are weakened or already dead. It breaks down cellulose from dead herbaceous or plants, which is then further turned into glucose to Be used by the fungi themselves,^[11] and it uses NH₄Cl as a nitrogen source.^[12] In a study by Oxenbøll et al., C. oxysporum catalyzed glucose oxidation by producing glucose oxidase,^[13] which it is mentioned in another study conducted by Viswanathan et al. that the glucose oxidase helped protect against bacterial infection on the surface of fungi.^[14] The organism is also proven to be very osmotolerant in a laboratory environment, meaning it can tolerate extreme changes in water availability.^[3] C. oxysporum can be easily grown on agar media containing 10% glucose or 12 – 17% NaCl, they rarely grow on media containing 24% NaCl or 50% glucose and never isolated from media containing 32% NaCl or greater.^[3] C. oxysporum exhibits high metal tolerance, allowing it to survive well in contaminated soil.^[15]

It is proposed that C. oxysporum has a potential function in textile processes or paper/feed industries due to the xylanase resistance to most of tested neutral and alkaline proteases, meaning that xylanase would not be broken down by other protease, which allows it to continuously break down fiber into paper-making materials.^[12] C. oxysporum can also be used to make tempeh; traditional soy product originating from Indonesia.^[24] In multiple studies, C. oxysporum has been used in bioremediation. water bioremediation by targeting endosulfan^[25] and it exhibits metal tolerance and an ability to synthesize gold nanoparticles with superior catalytic activity for degradation of rhodamine B.^[15]