Introduction. People who live or work in buildings damaged by moulds face higher risk to their health. Microscopic fungi spread indoors can cause allergies, toxic reactions, of immune system weakness, and mycoses. The aim of the work was to find out microscopic fungi damaging living and working premises, to specify their taxonomic dependence and to present macro- and microscopic peculiarities of most spread micromycetes.
Material and methods. There were investigated 55 samples taken from 26 working and living premises in Vilnius city. Microscopic fungi were isolated by directly putting small pieces (scrapings) of damaged walls on a nutritive medium or washtng scraptngs in the phys io - logical solution and plating suspensions on the nutritive agar. Pure cultures were identified according their macromorphological features and micromorphological peculiarities using light microscopy.
Results. It was found out that walls of the investigated premises were damaged by microscopic fungi. The most spread were representatives of Aspergillus, Penicillium and Cladosporium genera. Fungi of Scopu- lariopsis, Paecilomyces, Ulocladium and Acremonium genera were also distributed. Most often encountered fungal species were Aspergillus versicolor, A. niger, Penicillium chrysogenum, P. aurantiogriseum, P. simplicissimum, as well as Cladosporium sphaerospermum, C. cladosporioides and Scopulariopsis candida, etc. Many of these fungi are known as able to provoke allergies and produce toxins. The article presents macro- and micromorphological characteristics of micromycetes often detected in living and working premises.
Summarizing remarks. Investigation of visually damaged walls and other surfaces of worktng and livtng premises revealed high spread of microscopic fungi. An imporrtant reason for their spreading could have been too high dampness of rooms or separate wall fragments. Most often detected fungi in the pre mises were rep re sen ta tives of Aspergillus, Penicillium and Clado- sporium genera (77-100 %).
