PCR diagnostics of dermatophytes and other pathogenic fungi

Abstract

Dermatophytes which belong to one of the three genera Epidermophyton, Trichophyton and Microsporum are the main cause of fungal infections of skin, hair and nails. Traditional diagnostic procedures consist of microscopy and culture, but due to the slow growth rate of dermatophytes typically two to four weeks are needed before a final diagnosis is obtained. The present invention is a rapid DNA extraction method extracting nucleic acids from fungi (e.g. dermatophytes and other pathogenic fungi) which can be performed from directly on hair, nail or skin specimens from humans, from naturally or experimentally infected animals or from cultured fungal colonies for the use in PCR amplification and detection assays. The present invention also includes specific primer sets for detection of any dermatophyte and for species specific detection of Trichophyton rubrum and Epidermophyton floccosum by PCR and a kit for diagnosing fungal infections.

Description

FIELD OF INVENTION[0001]A method for extracting nucleic acids from fungi, a PCR method for detecting fungi in patient samples and a PCR kit for detecting dermatophytes and diagnosing infections by the three genera Trichophyton, Microsporum and Epidermophyton. GENERAL BACKGROUND[0002]Human pathogenic dermatophytes, which belong to the three genera Trichophyton, Microsporum and Epidermophyton, are fungi that infect human skin, nails, and hair. While the genus Epidermophyton is represented only by a single species (E. floccosum), the genera Microsporum and Trichophyton include several different species (1). Depending on the site of the infection the dermatophytosis can be divided in: Tinea barbae, an infection of the bearded area mainly caused by T. verrucosum and T. mentagrophytes; Tinea capitis, usually caused by organisms from genera Microsporum and Trichophyton; Tinea corporis by any of the human pathogenic dermatophytes; Tinea favosa by T. schoenleninii; Tinea pedis frequently cau...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0013]pan-dermatophytes PCR: PCR reaction where one primer set targeting a common sequence shared by the group of dermatophytes, amplifies a common gene sequence and thus makes it possible to detect all species belonging to Trichophyton, Epidermophyton and Microsporum genera.

Problems solved by technology

Topical therapy is sufficient in most of cases of dermatophyte skin infection, but long term and often expensive systemic treatment is necessary in cases of tinea capitis, tinea barbae and onychomycosis.

Furthermore, genus and in some cases even the species-specific diagnosis is necessary due to different susceptibility patterns and contagious potential of tha various dermatophytes, thus e.g. Microsporum species are less susceptible than Trichophyton spp. to terbinafine and should be treated with griseofulvin, T. rubrum strains are more susceptible to some antifungal drugs than T. mentagrophytes and some dermatophytes may cause epidemic outbreaks in schools and institutions due to transfer from man to man while others may not as their primary host is an animal (1

Direct microscopic examination of skin and nail material is often sufficient for the preemptive diagnosis of a fungal infection, but it does not give specific species diagnosis.

Furthermore, although rapid and cheap, this technique has a relatively low sensitivity and shows false negative results in up to 15% cases (2).

Such cases are especially cost- and time-consuming and require specialist skills (2).

Such methodologies are inconvenient for routine diagnostic purposes for several reasons.

First, the necessary initial cultivation of the patient samples is time consuming (up to 10 days) (13).

Next, the phenol / chlorophorm DNA extraction method applied in the methods of the DNA extraction directly from skin and hair samples (14) is toxic and thus not applicable for routine diagnostic use in laboratories receiving a large number of samples per day.

Finally, the previously published methods all involve a number of handlings (e.g. grinding or bead beating, and washing of the DNA pellets or columns) that increase the risk of the contamination of the samples and false PCR results.

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