The diversity of fungi in permanently frozen soil from northeastern Siberia was studied by culture-independent PCR amplification of diverse environmental 18S rRNA genes. Elaborate protocols to avoid contamination during drilling, sampling, and amplification were used. A broad diversity of eukaryotic DNA sequences that were 510 bp long, including sequences of various fungi, plants, and invertebr...

Vanbreuseghem (1) recently described a selective procedure for isolating keratinophilic fungi from soil. The method extends the work of Karling (2), who first used keratin in various forms as bait for the isolation of chytrids from soil and water. Vanbreuseghem placed hair filaments upon the surface of moistened soil in which Trichophyton mentagrophytes (Ctenomyces interdigitalis), T. rubrum an...

Dermatophytes are a group of keratinophilic fungi capable of invading keratinized tissues (skin, hair and nails). They cause dermatophytosis (commonly known as tinea or Ring worm) in human and animals. In this report, DNA similarities and genomic linkage of 40 dermatophytes strains was obtained from different universities, were studied by random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD–PCR) using 11 ra...

The aim of our study was to determine the prevalence of keratinophilic and keratinolytic fungi in the soil of recreational areas in Lodz, with a particular emphasis on species potentially pathogenic for humans. The material consisted of 104 soil samples collected from the surface layer and 10-15 cm below the surface at 26 recreational areas in Lodz. Soil samples were inoculated on Sabouraud, Cz...