Statens Serum Institut

Anna H Brillowska-Dabrowska

Dermatophytes which belong to one of the three generaandare 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 ofandby PCR and a kit for diagnosing fungal infections.

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Gdansk, Poland

Anna H Brillowska-Dabrowska