Sa. Howell et al., Application of molecular typing methods to dermatophyte species that causeskin and nail infections, J MED MICRO, 48(1), 1999, pp. 33-40
Typing methods utilising DNA technology were applied to a collection of Tri
chophyton mentagrophytes and T. rubrum isolates from skin and nail infectio
ns. The methods included restriction enzyme analysis (REA), hybridisation w
ith the DNA probe poly (dG-dT), randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) b
y PCR and restriction analysis of a segment of PCR-amplified rDNA, All thes
e tests successfully differentiated the species, but few intra-species diff
erences were detected. REA demonstrated some isolate variation, but this wa
s limited and difficult to interpret, making it unsuitable as a typing tool
. RAPD demonstrated few variations amongst T. mentagrophytes and none in T.
rubrum.