Indoor environment factor · measured in CFU/m³
Aspergillus
Part of: Airborne fungi
Also: Aspergillus fumigatus, Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus versicolor, aspergilli
A genus of moulds common both outdoors and in buildings, producing small spores that are readily inhaled. It matters more than most indoor fungi because some species can grow at body temperature and cause disease as well as allergy.
What it is
Most indoor moulds are a problem only for people who react to them. Aspergillus is different in one respect that governs everything else about it: several species grow at 37 °C, so inhaled spores can colonise a human airway rather than merely provoke it.
That gives it three distinct roles. In healthy people it acts like any other mould allergen, contributing to sensitisation and to asthma and rhinitis symptoms. In people with damaged airways it can colonise cavities and sustain chronic disease. In people whose immune defences are suppressed it can invade tissue, which is why air handling in transplant and haematology units is designed around this genus and why construction work near a hospital is treated as a clinical risk.
Indoors it favours warm, moderately damp material and is a frequent finding in ventilation systems, in dust and around water damage.
What the studies report
| Linked to | Effect | Population | Study design | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | ratio 2.5 | — · car cabin | cross-sectional study of vehicle cabins: airborne fungal communities sampled inside vehicles and related to how the vehicle is used, where it is parked, how the cabin filter is maintained and whether the occupants perceive a musty odour | F-1600 Rodríguez-Villarreal et al. Distribution of Airborne Fungi in Vehicles and Its Associati… (2025) | machine |
Each row is one Finding — a sentence as printed in one study, recorded with its page in the Coridum Knowledge Base. Follow the Finding number for the exact wording and the citation. Checked says who verified the row: machine means every automatic check passed and the surrounding text was read; person means someone read the sentence in the document. Rows are re-checked by a person over time. The studies are curated in the Coridum Knowledge Base; the reading of them together is a Claim, shown separately.
Identifiers
- MeSH
- D001230
Cite this page
Coridum Research. Aspergillus. Coridum Knowledge G-0206, 16 September 2026. https://coridum.com/k/G-0206/