Histoplasma capsulatum strains collection of the Laboratory of Fungi Immunology (LIH, for its initials in Spanish) has acquired national and international projection for its biological asset based on its large number of strains isolated from nature and clinical cases. It is registered in the database of the World Data Centre for Microorganisms (WDCM) of the World Federation for Culture Collections (WFCC) under number LIH-UNAM WDCM817 , and can be accessed via Internet.

Starting with register No. CDBB-H-001223, fungus specimens kept in distilled water have been deposited in the Mexican Culture Collection housed in the Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional (CINVESTAV, IPN), which is also registered at WFCC with number CDBB WDCM500.

At present, our collection consists of 190 strains, from which most are mainly primo-isolates from different sources and geographic regions within the Mexican Republic and some correspond to strains from other countries. Having this biological asset, allows for the analysis of the distribution and dispersion of the fungus in nature, when using its phenotypic and genotypic markers as biogeographic indicators. Likewise, it also allows to identify the infection sources by relating environmental strains from different geographical origins to those isolated from clinical cases. Knowledge of the phenotype and genotype particularities of each strain will favor the processing of precise and reliable information to propose a classification of the isolated strains in Mexico and those from other American countries, besides designing an epidemiological map of the disease (histoplasmosis) in order to define new parameters for the evaluation of its present prevalence in the American continent.