Dermatophyte fungi are a common cause of skin, nail and hair infections globally, ranging from mild to cosmetically disfiguring, or even invasive in rare cases. Specimens requiring fungal microscopy culture for suspected dermatophyte infection make up significant portion the workload diagnostic microbiology laboratories. Whilst still considered gold standard, culture-based method is labour inte...

In this study techniques for laboratory identification of dermatophyte fungi through protoplast hybridization were established. Firstly, auxotrophic mutants of different species of microsporum and trichophyton were induced and identified. Secondly, protoplasts from these mutants were isolated by digestion of their mycelium with Novozyme 234 using CaCI, (O.4M) as an osmotic stabilizer and g...

Despite that matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry (MS) has become a powerful tool in the clinical microbiology setting, few studies have till now focused on MALDI-TOF MS-based identification of dermatophytes. In this study, we analyze dermatophytes strains isolated from clinical samples by MALDI-TOF MS to supplement the reference database avai...

The performance of a new commercially available duplex PCR, which combines pan-dermatophyte PCR with a Trichophyton rubrum-specific PCR, was evaluated. This Dermatophyte PCR kit, which requires one day for laboratory diagnosis, was compared with the conventional methods of microscopy and culture that necessitate up to 4 weeks for final diagnosis of dermatophytosis. We studied 177 nail samples f...

BACKGROUND Dermatophytes are the most common causative agents of superficial mycoses. Species identification of these fungi is important from therapeutic and epidemiological point of wive. Traditional approaches for identification of dermatophytes at the species level, relying on macroscopic and microscopic features of the colonies, usually are time-consuming and unreliable in many circumstance...

BACKGROUND A rapid, accurate screening test for dermatophytosis in cats is desirable in clinical and shelter medicine. In human dermatology, dermoscopy is used to identify dermatophyte-infected hairs by their characteristic comma hair appearance. Similar "comma-like" hairs have been observed in infected cats. HYPOTHESIS/OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of de...

conclusions an increasing frequency of ndo compared to onychomycosis due to other causative agents has been noticeable over the past few years in iran. this epidemiological data may be useful in the development of preventive and educational strategies. results based on only direct microscopy, onychomycosis was diagnosed in 424 (39.6%) cases, among which 35.8% were caused by dermatophytes, 32.7%...