[2] It typically grows as a saprotroph and is found in a wide variety of substrates, including soil, fruits, vegetables, nuts, crops, and human and animal waste.

[4] Cunninghamella bertholletiae displays very rapid growth on Sabouraud's agar (up to 20mm per day), which differentiates it from members of the Ascomycota and Basidiomycota.

[3] This species has very wide (10-20 μm), aseptate or partially septate hyphae, which contributes to a high capacity for cytoplasmic streaming.

[2] Cunninghamella bertholletiae produces spores in globose sporangia atop sporangiophores that are typically tall enough to be visible without a microscope.

[2] When they meet, these gametangia fuse (plasmogamy) and form a multinucleate, dikaryotic zygosporangium flanked by suspensor cells derived from the contributing hyphae.

[4] Its usual life cycle involves saprotrophy, and it is commonly found on dung,[5] rotting vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds, soil, compost, sewage, and peat.

[2][3] Cunninghamella bertholletiae can infect a wide variety of human tissue types,[3] exhibits hyphal growth in the body[6] and is angioinvasive.

[7] Common classes of mucormycoses include pulmonary, rhinocerebral (particularly when invasion into the vasculature of the brain is involved), multi-organ, cutaneous, and gastrointestinal (primarily in premature babies and malnourished children).

[2] Diagnosis and treatment Although C. bertholletiae is only responsible for a small percentage of mucormycoses, it is cited as having the worst prognosis of the Mucorales.

[8] There are few identified cases per year, but C. bertholletiae infections and other mucormycoses are increasing in prevalence in North America, possibly due to growing populations of aging and immunosuppressed people.

[9] Cunninghamella bertholletiae can also grow at higher temperatures, which can be helpful in testing contaminated surfaces to differentiate between benign and pathogenic fungi.

[2][3] Furthermore, the difficulty of culturing C. bertholletiae and other species within Mucorales from tissue samples [2] makes laboratory analysis necessary to determine the causative organism of a mucormycosis.

[8] Recently, DNA barcoding of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of C. bertholletiae ribosomal DNA was performed to improve upon current diagnostic techniques, providing more accurate and detailed between- and within-species discrimination compared to traditional analysis of colony colour and morphology, maximum growth temperature, and reproductive characteristics.

[4] However, compared to other Mucorales species, C. bertholletiae has decreased responsiveness to some antifungals that are commonly prescribed to treat mucormycoses, and samples should be tested for individual antibiotic susceptibility if possible.

Furthermore, C. bertholletiae was identified as the causative agent of a fatal case of rhinocerebral mucormycosis in a patient with hemochromatosis,[10] expanding the recognized risk factors for infection.