The United States of America, As Represented by the Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services

Brian Holloway

Christine J Morrison

Errol Reiss

Vincent Hill

Jothikumar Narayanan

Sanchita Das

Teresa Brown

Jong Hee Shin

Compositions and methods for detecting and/or differentiating amongorganisms, includingand, are disclosed. Exemplary methods involve screening a sample suspected of containing at least one or moresp. for the presence or absence of a nucleic acid sequence specific for each such fungal pathogen. Some disclosed methods permit the rapid and simultaneous detection and identification of several fungal pathogens (e.g., up to 100 fungi) in a single sample.

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The present invention provides a rapid method for identifying species of Candida. Identification is through the use of a non-conserved regions of the ITS2 region flanked by highly conserved functional domains. Detection of members of the Candida and Aspergillus genera is enhanced by the detection of genus-specific regions of the 5.8S rRNA gene. The present invention provides isolated nucleic acids that selectively hybridize to the fungal genus-specific 5.8S rRNA region, and to the species-specific ITS2 region. The invention provides for nucleic acid sequences for use as selective probes for fungal genus-specific probes and as Candida species-specific probes. The present invention provides methods for the use of the Candida species-specific probes that allow the detection and identification of the individual species in biological samples.

Methods and compositions for the detection of Candida spp.

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Atlanta, GA, United States of America

Brian Holloway