Application of Molecular Techniques for Rapid Diagnosis of Dermatophytes Infection in Horses

Dermatophytes are a group of keratinophilic fungi that cause Dermatophytosis which is a highly contagious fungal infection of the skin that affects horses of all ages and breeds. In the present study, A total of 30 horses out of 216 (13.8%) were clinically examined; they were subjected to mycological examination. Direct microscopic examination of samples resulted in 20 (66.6%) positive samples out of 30, while culture examination revealed that 13 (43.3%) were culture positive within 2-4 weeks. Culture identification resulted in 4 species namely T. verrucosum (9, 69%), T. mentagrophytes var. erinacei (2, 15.3%), T. equinum var. autotrophicum (1, 7.6%) and M. canis (1, 7.6%). After performing a rapid DNA extraction method directly from the hair samples the total 30 DNA extracts were subjected to PCR using specific primers for dermatophytes group. This PCR resulted in 22 (73.3%) positive samples within 8 hours. The present work assured that dermatophytes can be molecular biologically diagnosed by an accurate, sensitive, specific and very rapid method within hours instead of weeks.