Diversity of pathogenic fungi isolated from onychomycosis patients

To provide references for clinical treatments, fungal species isolated from nails infected with onychomycosis were identified based on morphological observations and rDNA ITS sequence analyses. Values of ShannonWiener biodiversity index(H′), Margalef richness index(Ma) and Pielou evenness index(J) were calculated for comparison between fingernail and toenail samples. A total of 641 strains were isolated from 1 568 onychomycosis patients attending the Department of Dermatology, Peking University Third Hospital from February to September 2010, including 561 strains from toenails and 80 from fingernails. Dermatophytes were detected in more than half of the cases(59.13%), with Trichophyton rubrum as the dominant species(96.04%), followed by yeasts(17.00%) and other fungi(23.87%). Among the species identified, Candida galli, Lewiain fectoria and Paraconiothyrium hawaiiense isolated from toenails, as well as Cyberlindnera jadinii from fingernails are new records to China. The H′, Ma and J values of fungi isolated from toenails were greater than those from fingernails. The results also showed that the most common isolated fungus from the onychomycosis patients was T. rubrum. Fungal species diversity from toenails was more abundant than that from fingernails.