Diversity among wild type and vaccination strains of Trichophyton verrucosum investigated using random amplified polymorphic DNA analysis.

: We initially tested 20 primers for their ability to amplify genomic DNA of Trichophyton verrucosum using RAPD. Six of these were selected for further study aimed at discrimination of wild type and vaccination strains of T. verrucosum. The results indicate that RAPD successfully distinguished all strains included in the study. In addition, results of corrected cluster analysis were consistent with the fact that the avirulent vaccination strains (T. verrucosum TV-M9 and T. verrucosum TV-M-130) were prepared by ultraviolet (UV) light induced mutagenesis of the standard wild type strain T. verrucosum Stradznice. No marker for a/virulence was detected. These outcomes suggest new possibilities for epidemiological analyses, for discrimination among different vaccination strains and studies of fungal population in vaccinated/infected hosts.