A total of 61 clinical yeast isolates of Candida, Cryptococcus, Blastoschizomyces, and Saccharomyces spp. were used to compare two identification techniques, VITEK 2 and ITS2-fragment length polymorphism analysis (ITS2-FLP), with ID32C as the reference method. ID32C identified 58 isolates correctly. ITS2-FLP with Instagene DNA extraction identified 59 isolates. ITS2-FLP combined with boiling-fr...

Some Xylaria materials growing on the fruits of Liquidambar spp. were collected. They were identified as X. persicaria on the basis of morphological characteristics and sequence analysis of the complete ITS region (ITS1-5.8S-ITS2) of rDNA. This is the first record of this species from Korea.

The worldwide-distributed aquatic fungus Articulospora tetracladia Ingold is a dominant sporulating species in streams of the Northwest Iberian Peninsula. To elucidate the genetic diversity of A. tetracladia, we analyzed isolates collected from various types of plant litter or foam in streams from North and Central Portugal and North Spain, between 2000 and 2010. Genetic diversity of these fung...

Most phylogenetic studies using current methods have focused on primary DNA sequence information. However, RNA secondary structures are particularly useful in systematics because they include characteristics that give "morphological" information which is not found in the primary sequence. Also DNA sequence motifs from the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) of the nuclear rRNA repeat are useful f...

The aim of this study was to clarify the identity of specimens designated as Opius sp. aff. bellus using geometric morphometry and analysis of the ITS2 region of the ribosomal DNA (rDNA) and region D2 of the 28S rDNA. Opius bellus Gahan is a koinobiont endoparasitoid of fruit fly larvae (Diptera: Tephritidae) exclusively found in the Neotropical region, but widely distributed from Mexico to Arg...

Candida albicans is the most common human yeast pathogen which causes mucosal infections and invasive fungal diseases. Early detection of this pathogen is needed to guide preventative and therapeutic treatment. The aim of this study was to establish a polymerase spiral reaction (PSR) assay that rapidly and accurately detects C. albicans and to assess the clinical applicability of PSR-based diag...

The internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) is a phylogenetic marker which has been of broad use in generic and infrageneric level classifications, as its sequence evolves comparably fast. Only recently, it became clear, that the ITS2 might be useful even for higher level systematic analyses. As the secondary structure is highly conserved within all eukaryotes it serves as a valuable template for ...