CONTRIBUTION TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF FUNGAL COMMUNITY COLONIZING MUMMIFIED BODIES IN THE MEDITERRANEAN AREA

Mycology has been recently applied to forensic investigation highlighting the usefulness of studying fungi in different areas of forensic science. Due to the lack of common protocols, the forensic mycological data in literature are not always comparable. Like all new applications, even forensic mycology requires data collected according to standardized and comparable methods to become more effective. In the present work a mycological profile of mummified body following the described protocol is presented. The mycological profile was composed by 64 fungal colonies of 6 different species belonging to genus Aspergillus, Cladosporium, Fusarium, Penicillium, and Phialemonium. This work aims to implement the knowledge of the fungal community sampled from a mummified body in Northern Italy and to describe the employed protocol. The final goal is to stimulate a general discussion to derive an internationally accepted protocol for cadaveric fungi sampling and an applicable analysis by forensic professionals during forensic investigation.