Hi Professor, here is a link may be useful Regards

https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&ei=TfbMVPCmMOfFmQW7k4CoBw&url=http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/nas/rdrp/appendices/chapter6/a6-116.pdf&ved=0CB4QFjAB&usg=AFQjCNFp1gCNX2Z6e3v4DDEVZOyZUF1gLA&sig2=cgV4HOezVNS3Yt-Mjoff_Q

Many thanks for your answer.

Specific PCR is definitevely a practical solution. I wonder if there is a validated culture-based method.

Hi Stephane, what i have learnt is that you need to enrich the fungus by inoculation of suspected soil or plant material into animals and harvest liver and spleen. Cultures directly from soil will be always contaminated with saprophytes. regards

Thank you Jacques for your input. I have read the paper  by Gugnani (Mycopathologia. 1994;127(3):151-7.) which say the same i.e. that inoccuation to mice is the only way to recover Histoplasma. Too bad that it's so difficult for me.  Kind regards

Dear Stephane,

You may like to check out the following links.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1526182/

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02050730

http://www.reviberoammicol.com/2001-18/180182.pdf

Regards

Dear Mohammed,

Thank you for these usefull refrences. They are all in agre with what Jacques said:  I will have to use mice to isolate this fungus. Kind regards

We isolated H. capsulatum var capsulatum from soil enriched with faecal droppings of a bat in Gangetic West Bengal.  To isolate the fungus we followed two methods -    1. Soil floatation and mouse inoculation and  2. Soil floatation and inoculating media to culture the fungi. The supernatant soil suspension was examined microscopically.

Histoplasma capsulatum was detected on direct microscopic examination and was cultured by soil floatation and mouse inoculation method only, in one out of 212 soil sample, but not by agar plate culture

It is evident from our work that animal inoculation yields good results.

Other procedures may need enormous amount of money and labour.

As C.M. Christensen said that your results and conclusions depend on the material and method you follow.

Thank you very much for sharing your personal experience that provides an additional argument in favor of using the mouse inoculation method.

Regards