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Mold colonies aggregate and use environmental nanoparticles, becoming more pathogenic

frozenborderline

Senior Member
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4,405
https://www.pnas.org/content/115/27/7087

I really can’t overstate how huge this article is. There have been previous articles showing that molds can use nanoparticles in interesting ways in the lab, and separately that nanoparticles themselves can act differently re the immune system than diffsize particles. But this article puts that all together and studies the interaction Btwn molds and various kinds of nanoparticles both in the lab and in samples from the “wild” showing that mold colonies aggregate nanoparticles in a way that alters the molds pathogenicity! The authors suggest that it’s probable or possible that most mold in the wild is doing this, and so models based on standard mycotoxin toxicity from labs, don’t accounts for this behavior. And it’s published in a good journal.
 

frozenborderline

Senior Member
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4,405
In this work, we demonstrate that nanoparticles rapidly assemble on spores under physiologically and ecologically relevant conditions. We provide in vitro and in vivo evidence that nanoparticle coating of the clinically most relevant airborne fungal pathogen, Aspergillus fumigatus, can affect the pathobiological identity and fate of both fungal spores and nanoparticles. Our findings suggest that nanoparticle coating of bioaerosols may be relevant for ecology and human health”
 

frozenborderline

Senior Member
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4,405
I would like to see animal experiments on this (although the mice might have different views).

If mold is made more toxic through exposure to nanoparticles, let's see if nanoparticle-boosted mold has worse effects on animals than mold alone.
I thought they did this as part of this paper, although I only skimmed it ans was delirious. Did they conclude that
the immune evading effects were worse only based on some kind of modeling w cellls in a dish? I could swear that I read that they did experiments on mice. It’s a very big paper that has lots of different parts —the interesting thing to me, is that they went beyond demonstrating proof of concept —that fungi can aggregate And use nanoparticles, and actually found fungal hyphae in the wild doing that, described the various geometric/chemical/binding relationships Btwn these nanoparticles , and mold. And then described how this actually works in the body.


Now, I know the concept that nanoparticles are necessary to explain mold toxicity sounds a little bit Rube Goldberg like overblown but ...
I don’t think that current toxicological models account for how badly people can Be affected by even tiny amounts of mold, and whether it’s nanoparticles or something else in the enviroment, I want to see more papers looking at hiw mold colonies (pr Cyanobacteria or other pathogenic organisms ) interact w/ human pollution.

I saw you post something somewhere about how there’s possibly a bias against infectious hypotheses for various chronic diseases including “mental illnesses”, and I agree but I would also raise you one and say that I think there’s a strong scientific bias against really in depth study of environmentally (by which I don’t Mean “social determinants of health” but the external microbiome, pollutants, etc , ans all the nasty mixtures these create)

The reason there’s a strong scientific bias against environmental causes of disease research may be not so much a conspiracy (although I’m sure various powerful industries lobby against research into x or y material ) but a sort of unspoken ideological assumption in science that ecological laws don’t apply to humans. Sort of a modernist idea that since we create our environment we control it and are not subject to the effects of “nature”. But natural laws still apply within civilizations and I guess my point is generally there’s an illusion of control with regard to our enviroment when many of the harmful effects on us may be multiplicative, difficult to study without taking snapshots or slices of whole ecosystems, etc
 

Hip

Senior Member
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17,824
I could swear that I read that they did experiments on mice.

Ah yes you're right they did do mice experiments; here's one of them:
When analyzing lung cytokine response in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, we found increased levels of IL-1β and TNF-α in NP-coated conidia–infected mice compared with conidia controls, confirming our in vitro data.

So they found that nanoparticle-coated conidia (fungal spores) elicited a stronger immune response in the lungs of mice than pure conidia alone.


Searching Google for mold or fungus and nanoparticles, I found these articles:

Synthesis of nanoparticles by fungi — this article is about using fungi to manufacture nanoparticles such as gold nanoparticles, as an alternative to the usual chemical synthesis of nanoparticles. It seems that fungi can naturally produce nanoparticles. So if nanoparticles can increase mold toxicity, perhaps molds can boost their own toxicity by their natural creation of nanoparticles.

Effective Control of Molds Using a Combination of Nanoparticles — this article is about using nanoparticle additives in paints to help control mold growth on walls.

In their tests, they found that the nanoparticles they used inhibited mold growth. And in terms of the toxicity of the nanoparticles, they found that in a human macrophage cell line, these nanoparticles did not elicit an inflammatory response, which suggested the nanoparticles are not toxic.

However, they did not test the combined effect of nanoparticles + mold on the human macrophage cell line, so it's possible that this combination may be toxic, even if the nanoparticles alone did not appear toxic.
 

Wishful

Senior Member
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5,679
Location
Alberta
It looks like a complex area of study, rather than a simple 'higher concentrations of nanoparticles in the environment makes mold sensitivity worse' conclusion. Can you find examples of molds + nanoparticles having a stronger health effect? Sure. Might there also be examples of the same thing reducing harmful effects? Probably. Will there be an announcement someday that a certain mold spore with a certain type of nanoparticle will cure one cancer and cause a different type of cancer? Probably that too. There are so many different molds and possible types of nanoparticles (size, elements, elemental ratios) that pretty much anything is possible.

Really, the main conclusion I get from the report is that the study of health effects of mold spores is just more complex than previously expected.
 

Sidny

Senior Member
Messages
176
Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt always references a study where he says mold exposed to EMFs was 600 times more virulent than the sample protected from it in a faraday cage. Not sure if there is any merit to this study or if It even exists but if it’s true with our EMF saturated environment that could spell trouble for obvious reasons.

What exactly counts as nanoparticles by the way? Do the byproducts of industry like fossil fuel emissions qualify?
 

frozenborderline

Senior Member
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4,405
What exactly counts as nanoparticles by the way? Do the byproducts of industry like fossil fuel emissions qualify?
Nanoparticles can be sometimes used interchangeably with ultrafine particles I believe. They don’t have to be specifically intentionally manufactured and can indeed be a byproduct of industry. Candle smoke produced buckyball carbon 60 nanoparticles. However , there are probably far more nanoparticles in the environment now than at any time in history, and of varying materials.

I have found somewhere some study about how nanoparticles in their own (without mold) can be particularly harmful as they can evade immune responses and lodge themselves in tissues easily. I would still guess the material matters, these were iron nanoparticles perhaps from car exhaust ?
 

frozenborderline

Senior Member
Messages
4,405
It looks like a complex area of study, rather than a simple 'higher concentrations of nanoparticles in the environment makes mold sensitivity worse' conclusion
Sure, on one hand it’s too early to make conclusions about this, but I would think that it should raise some concern about the role of nanoparticles in chronic disease and mean that we devote more study to them. Of course the materials matter, probably the specific mold matters , etc. But I have a concern that sometimes when it comes to regulatory agencies, human enterprise, and even some scientists, there is sometimes a blind spot in terms of exercising caution with new materials etc. although ultrafine particles are not exactly new, there are probably way way more than ever, plus nanoparticles of various materials that are created for use in various industries may behave differently than ultrafine particles of the more common pollutants. I just think this study is impressive and far more study is warranted on this subject.


Really, the main conclusion I get from the report is that the study of health effects of mold spores is just more complex than previously expected.
I 100% agree. This point has been made before with regard to the effects of the mixture of bacteria fragments, mold , etc in water damaged buildings being more toxic than any of the parts themselves. But I think this study adds to the questions about how mold acts “in the wild”. There is fairly well established Evidence that mold colonies are somewhat temperamental , eg they release toxins according to various environmental conditions, to compete with other molds, etc , but not just steadily. But this is another interesting way they interact w their enviroment and I think that researchers should start studying mold and other environmental triggers this way—by taking slices or some kind of snapshot of the whole microbial enviroment w/ all added pollutants/particles, and study this.
 

frozenborderline

Senior Member
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4,405
There are some studies showing that nanoparticles are harder to clear than regular particles by macrophages and tend to just get lodged in the body. I will find it. Whereas the innate immune system tends to clear most irritating debris and this is what allergy responses are made to do.
 

frozenborderline

Senior Member
Messages
4,405
Synthesis of nanoparticles by fungi — this article is about using fungi to manufacture nanoparticles such as gold nanoparticles, as an alternative to the usual chemical synthesis of nanoparticles. It seems that fungi can naturally produce nanoparticles. So if nanoparticles can increase mold toxicity, perhaps molds can boost their own toxicity by their natural creation of nanoparticles
If I’m not mistaken, this refers to molds taking “normal size” metal particles and somehow processing them into nanoparticles? So if molds could do that but can also take already existing ultrafine particles and assemble them onto their conidia in a way that changes their immunogenicity , I really think this shows a large range of nanoparticle /mold interactions we should be concerned w as well as just mold/metal /other pollutants interactions.


For example, some people noted that , while there was a Cyanobacteria bloom and mold in relevant buildings during the Tahoe cfs outbreak, there was also cloud seeding with silver iodide in the area.
Anecdotes suggest that the mold became more pathogenic around that’s time.

The cloud seeding is not a conspiracy—it wasn’t by the government but just by local ski areas, and was well documented in the papers and I think opposed by some activists.

I don’t know if cloud seeding uses ultrafine particles, but even if they were regular sized , they could possibly be processed by the molds into nanoparticles that would be more immunogenic.

I believe that it’s well established that particle size and surface energy matter to the immune system
 

frozenborderline

Senior Member
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4,405
Here’s an interesting article on particle size and “danger signalling” which seems to be a similar concept to Naviaux cell danger response : http://www.bloodjournal.org/content/115/22/4533

Of course the particles they were using were rna, not metal particles, but the fact that they showed that there was a significant difference in the immune response to nanometric vs micrometric particles of the same material means that size matters and should be on the radar of researchers , especially when it comes to possible environmental factors in illnesses
 

Hip

Senior Member
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17,824
while there was a Cyanobacteria bloom and mold in relevant buildings during the Tahoe cfs outbreak, there was also cloud seeding with silver iodide in the area.

Now that would be an interesting experiment to conduct: get hold of some Cyanobacteria, preferably the same species that appeared on Lake Tahoe during the outbreak, and test the effects of adding silver iodide to them.

Maybe that combination might make the Cyanobacteria more toxic to humans.
 

frozenborderline

Senior Member
Messages
4,405
Now that would be an interesting experiment to conduct: get hold of some Cyanobacteria, preferably the same species that appeared on Lake Tahoe during the outbreak, and test the effects of adding silver iodide to them.

Maybe that combination might make the Cyanobacteria more toxic to humans.
Yes, but I would also imagine that the silver iodide could somehow affect indoor molds, because houses aren’t perfectly sealed off closed systems and any pollutants could affect them.

And then there’s unknown outdoor molds. In his biopgraphy (back from the edge ) Erik Johnson mentioned that during the outbreak he was trying to avoid getting sick so he was sort of staying out of town ans working outside, and he was holding a log w a kind of mold on it described as greenish w white center or the other way around? When he passed out and came down w CFS

The mold has been conjectured to be a penicillium species which emits the toxin “penitrem a”. Either way, it’s possible that outdoor molds also became more pathogenic bc of the cloud seeding.

I am far far less familiar w Cyanobacteria and don’t know if they can process nanoparticles the way molds can