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## IntechOpen Book Series Infectious Diseases

### Volume 25

### Aims and Scope of the Series

This series will provide a comprehensive overview of recent research trends in various Infectious Diseases (as per the most recent Baltimore classification). Topics will include general overviews of infections, immunopathology, diagnosis, treatment, epidemiology, etiology, and current clinical recommendations for managing infectious diseases. Ongoing issues, recent advances, and future diagnostic approaches and therapeutic strategies will also be discussed. This book series will focus on various aspects and properties of infectious diseases whose deep understanding is essential for safeguarding the human race from losing resources and economies due to pathogens.

## Meet the Series Editor

Dr. Rodriguez-Morales is an expert in tropical and emerging diseases, particularly zoonotic and vector-borne diseases (notably arboviral diseases), and more recently COVID-19 and Monkeypox. He is the president of the Publications and Research Committee of the Pan-American Infectious Diseases Association (API), as well as the president of the Colombian Association of Infectious Diseases (ACIN). He is a member of the Committee on Tropical Medicine,

Zoonoses, and Travel Medicine of ACIN. Dr. Rodriguez-Morales is a vice-president of the Latin American Society for Travel Medicine (SLAMVI) and a member of the Council of the International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID). Since 2014, he has been recognized as a senior researcher at the Ministry of Science of Colombia. He is a professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the Fundacion Universitaria Autonoma de las Americas, in Pereira, Risaralda, Colombia, and a professor, Master in Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, at Universidad Científica del Sur, Lima, Peru. He is also a non-resident adjunct faculty member at the Gilbert and Rose-Marie Chagoury School of Medicine, Lebanese American University, Beirut, Lebanon, and an external professor, Master in Research on Tropical Medicine and International Health, at Universitat de Barcelona, Spain. Additionally, an invited professor, Master in Biomedicine, at Universidad Internacional SEK, Quito, Ecuador, and a visiting professor, Master Program of Epidemiology, at Diponegoro University, Indonesia. In 2021 he was awarded the "Raul Isturiz Award" Medal of the API and, the same year, the "Jose Felix Patiño" Asclepius Staff Medal of the Colombian Medical College due to his scientific contributions to the topic of COVID-19 during the pandemic. He is currently the Editor in Chief of the journal Travel Medicine and Infectious Diseases. His Scopus H index is 55 (Google Scholar H index 77) with a total of 725 publications indexed in Scopus.

## Meet the Volume Editors

Professor Mehdi Razzaghi-Abyaneh obtained his Ph.D. in Medical Mycology from Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. Dr. Razzaghi-Abyaneh pursued a 12-month sabbatical on the identification of antifungal compounds from bioactive plants at the Graduate School of Agriculture, Tokyo University, in the Laboratory of Applied Biological Chemistry from 2006 to 2007. He is currently a full professor and eminent research scientist at the Pasteur Insti-

tute of Iran, where he is working on mycotoxins and mycotoxigenic fungi as well as antifungal nanomaterial, and biologically active antifungals of plant, fungal, and bacterial origin for more than 23 years. He has supervised and advised several Ph.D. and MSc theses. Dr. Razzaghi-Abyaneh has published more than 150 papers in peer-reviewed international journals, 10 books, and several book chapters. His research is focused on the chemical basis of plant–fungal interactions and determining the mode of action of antifungal bioactive compounds of natural origin as small macromolecules at cellular and molecular levels.

Professor Mahendra Rai is a visiting scientist at Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun, Poland. He has published more than 450 research papers, more than 102 journal articles, and 75 books. He is a member of several scientific societies and has been a national scholar for five years. He received several prestigious awards, including the Father T.A. Mathias Award (1989) from the All India Association for Christian Higher Education, and the Medi-

ni Award (1999) from the Department of Environment and Forest, Government of India. He also received a SERC visiting fellowship from the Department of Science and Technology (1996), an INSA visiting fellowship from the Indian National Science Academy (1998), and TWAS-UNESCO Associateship (2002), Italy. Dr. Rai was also awarded a UGC-BSR faculty fellowship by the University Grants Commission, New Delhi (2017–2020) and an NAWA fellowship by the Polish Government (2021–2023). He serves as a referee for twenty international journals and is an editorial board member of ten national and international journals. He has approximately three decades of teaching and research experience. The focus of his research is plant- and nano-based bioactives against human pathogenic microbes.

Professor Masoomeh Shams-Ghahfarokhi is a faculty member at Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran, where she has been working for around 25 years. After graduating with a degree in Medical Mycology in 2000, Dr. Shams-Ghahfarokhi passed a training course as a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) fellow in Japan during 2005–2007. Her research is focused on the identification and isolation of antifungal compounds from

natural resources (including plants and organisms) and their molecular aspects on the activity of pathogenic fungi. She is active in evaluating the inhibitory effects of bio-nanomaterials and anti-scaling membranes for the selective treatment of fungal infections and their mechanism of action on the cellular and molecular levels. She is also investigating the identification of pathogenic fungi and their genetic diversity

by using molecular techniques such as sequencing, real-time PCR, multiplex PCR, and other methods. Dr. Shams-Ghahfarokhi has around two decades of teaching and research, and she has advised and supervised numerous MSc and Ph.D. theses.

### Contents



## Preface

Filamentous fungi of the genus *Aspergillus* reside in soil as the main reservoir and are responsible for life-threatening nosocomial infections with undefined consequences all over the world. There are increasing numbers of such infections due to a rise in immunocompromised patients. At present, around 20 species are known to be involved in the etiology of *Aspergillus*-related diseases under the common name "aspergillosis." Inhalation of airborne conidia is the most important route of infection initiation, and the development of drug resistance against current therapeutic antifungals, especially azoles, is considered the main challenge for clinicians. This book highlights recent advances in *Aspergillus* and aspergillosis from molecular taxonomy and distribution to fungal–host interactions, pathogenesis, immunology, drug development against pathogenic species from bench to clinic, vaccines, novel diagnostic methods, treatment strategies and omics (genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, etc.) approaches to overcome virulence and pathogenicity of etiologic *Aspergillus* species.

The book is divided into five sections comprising 10 chapters. Chapter 1 discusses allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis, with emphasis on its clinical outcomes and pathogenesis. Chapter 2 discusses post-viral aspergillosis (PVA) as a clinical form of *Aspergillus* infection after influenza, COVID-19, and the cytomegalovirus infection. Chapter 3 examines the impact of *Aspergillus* infections in patients with selected chronic infections and the treatment of these infections. Chapter 4 shows that *A. fumigatus* requires different strategies by various attributes to infect and cause disease in different hosts and suppress resistance responses by the host. These attributes are influenced by environmental conditions including nutrient composition and response to host defenses. Chapter 5 details the recent progress of nanomaterials-based biosensors to diagnose aspergillosis. Chapter 6 demonstrates that metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) has the potential to be adopted as the gold standard for the diagnosis of pulmonary aspergillosis, which is a critical step in initiating prompt treatment and improving patients' prognosis. Chapter 7 highlights the importance of antifungal drug resistance against aspergillosis, with a special focus on its outcome in the treatment of clinical cases of the disease. Chapter 8 presents an immune-based nanosensor as a biosensor-Internet of Things (IoT) system as a potential way to achieve real-time detection of aspergillosis. The portable reader serves as an excellent point-of-care tool for routine monitoring of harmful mycotoxins, such as aflatoxins and ochratoxins. Chapter 9 presents an updated review of aflatoxin contamination and its impact and management strategies, providing valuable information for researchers, policymakers, and food safety professionals. Chapter 10 examines the industrial aspect of the genus *Aspergillus*, for example, fermentation of whey protein by *A. niger*, and the importance of released materials.

We would like to thank all authors for their invaluable contributions and hard work. We are also grateful to the staff at IntechOpen, especially Ms. Romina Rovan, who kindly assisted us in coordinating the book and scheduling our activities.

#### **Mehdi Razzaghi-Abyaneh**

Department of Mycology, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran

#### **Mahendra Rai**

Department of Microbiology, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun, Poland

#### **Masoomeh Shams-Ghahfarokhi**

Faculty of Medical Sciences, Department of Mycology, Tarbiat Modares University Tehran, Iran Section 1
