A review: fungal exposure assessment in indoor environments.

While the fungal exposure assessment was based on the determination of fungal propagules for a long time, recent progress has led to the development of methodology for other fungal agents, e.g. the fungal cell wall components, metabolites, and allergens, that may be responsible for health effects caused by fungal exposure. This review includes a summary of the sampling techniques and analytical methods that are currently used or are in progress for the fungal exposure assessment. Prospects for the future trends are also discussed. In the future, the development will focus on sampling techniques that allow longer sampling times, a higher sampling efficiency for relevant particle sizes, and better possibilities for a wide range of analyses. In addition, new or modified methodology based on chemical, immunochemical, and molecular biological techniques to measure fungal agents related to health effects will improve the understanding of biological responses caused by fungal exposure.