Tolypocladium inflatum

Tolypocladium inflatum is a fungus isolated from Norwegian soil that, in certain conditions, produces Ciclosporin (Cyclosporine).

The fungus from which ciclosporin was first isolated was originally misidentified as Trichoderma polysporum. Gams later showed that the fungus belonged in a new genus of molds, Tolypocladium, and he coined the name Tolypocladium inflatum for the ciclosporin fungus. In 1983, Bissett found that T. inflatum was the same as Pachybasium niveum, and since the latter older name has priority under the rules of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, Bissett made the combination Tolypocladium niveum. However, because of the economic importance of the fungus in the pharmaceutical industry, the name T. inflatum was later formally conserved to avoid confusion, so today the correct name of the mold that produces ciclosporin is Tolypocladium inflatum.

In 1996 Kathie Hodge and colleagues determined that the mold T. inflatum is the asexual state of Cordyceps subsessilis. Whereas the sexual C. subsessilis state is a pathogen of beetles, the asexual T. inflatum state is widely distributed in soils.