title: Fungal contamination of paraffin wax blocks in a pathology archive.
abstract: While searching for paraffin wax blocks for research purposes in our archive we detected numerous larval and some dead adult moths. Some wax blocks were riddled with a white-brown crumbling substance. The entire archive was checked and profoundly-infested blocks were separated from unaffected blocks. Mycological and parasitological investigations were performed. Fungi were identified by culture and polymerase chain reaction, which revealed high sequence homology to six different fungal species. The moths were determined to be Nemapogon personellus. A total of 8,484 wax blocks had to be removed from the archive and destroyed. Pathologists should be alerted to the importance of checking the humidity of the air where archival material is stored.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Pathology, Veterinary Faculty, Universität Leipzig, Germany. kristin.mueller@vetmed.unileipzig.de
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ellenberger
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Aupperle
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schmäschke
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Scheller
authors.forename: M M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Wittenbrink
authors.forename: H-A
authors.initials: HA
authors.lastname: Schoon
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D018070:Biological Specimen Banks; D004866:Equipment Contamination; D005658:Fungi / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D007814:Larva; D009036:Moths; D010232:Paraffin; D016612:Paraffin Embedding; D010336:Pathology
chemical_list: D010232:Paraffin