Identification and differentiation of Trichophyton rubrum clinical isolates using PCR-RFLP and RAPD methods

Area of Science:

• Medical Mycology
• Molecular Biology
• Infectious Diseases

Background:

• Trichophyton rubrum is the primary cause of dermatophytosis.
• Accurate species and strain identification is crucial for understanding fungal infections.
• Advanced genotyping methods are emerging for fungal pathogen analysis.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate DNA fingerprinting techniques for T. rubrum identification.
• To differentiate clinical isolates of T. rubrum at the strain level.
• To assess the utility of PCR-RFLP and RAPD for T. rubrum typing.

Main Methods:

• Fifty-seven clinical T. rubrum isolates were analyzed.
• Polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) for species identification.
• Randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) with two primers for strain differentiation.

Main Results:

• PCR-RFLP confirmed 55 isolates as T. rubrum.
• RAPD analysis yielded 40 and 5 distinct profiles with primers 1 and 6, respectively.
• Combined RAPD data generated 47 genotypes, indicating 85.4% genotypic diversity; however, most isolates (87.3%) were genetically related via primer 1.

Conclusions:

• PCR-RFLP is a rapid and reliable method for T. rubrum species identification.
• RAPD analysis proved disadvantageous for T. rubrum strain typing.
• Further research may be needed to optimize strain differentiation methods for T. rubrum.