GEOGRAPHIC DISCRIMINATION OF PARACOCCIDIOIDES-BRASILIENSIS STRAINS BYRANDOMLY AMPLIFIED POLYMORPHIC DNA ANALYSIS

Randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis of 33 Paracoccidioi des brasiliensis strains from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and V enezuela produced reproducible amplification products which were suffi ciently polymorphic to allow differentiation of the strains. Types gen erated with five primers (OPG 03, OPG 05, OPG 14, OPG 16, and OPG 18) resulted in a high discriminatory index (0.956), The discriminatory in dex was slightly reduced (0.940) when only two primers (OPG 3 and OPG 14) were used. A dendrogram based on these results showed a high degre e of similarity among the strains, and genetic differences were expres sed in clusters related to geographical regions but not to pathologica l features of the disease, With a few exceptions, strains were sorted into five groups by geographical origin as follows: group I, Venezuela n strains; group II, Brazilian strains; group III, Peruvian strains; g roup TV, Colombian strains; and group V, Argentinian strains. The grou p containing the most disparate strains was group V (discriminatory in dex, 0.633); the discriminatory index for the other four groups was 0. 824, The use of primer OPG 18 by itself was sufficient to discriminate species specificity, and the use of primer OPG 14 by itself was suffi cient to discriminate among the geographical locations of the strains in the sample. This method may be helpful for epidemiological studies of P. brasiliensis.