Sub-culturing and plating of cultures
All strains of Histoplasma were subcultured to establish good growth. The ten viable strains were inoculated onto 16 mm × 125 mm slants of Sabaroud's dextrose agar (BBLTM; BD, Franklin Lakes, NJ) and incubated for 14 days at 30 °C in an air incubator. The mold colonies were harvested with an inoculum loop and suspended in one milliliter of distilled water and vortexed with glass beads prior to inoculating onto the plated media. Preliminary studies were performed to determine the volume of suspension necessary to produce countable colony numbers. 100 UL of the mold suspension was plated onto 100 × 40 mm BHI and PDA-C plates and incubated at 30 °C. Colony numbers were counted on days 1 to 7 and again on day 14. Plates were evaluated visually and photographed with a Canon A640 Digital camera.