Molecular reidentification of human pathogenic Trichoderma isolates as Trichoderma longibrachiatum and Trichoderma citrinoviride.

Several species of the well-known saprophytic genus Trichoderma have been identified as the cause of infections in immunosuppressed humans. Because the differentiation and identification of Trichoderma species based on morphological characters only, is very difficult, two molecular approaches were applied for species identification. Six human pathogenic Trichoderma isolates were investigated by PCR-fingerprinting and analysis of ribosomal DNA internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences and compared with the corresponding data sets established for described species of the genus. Five of these strains were identified as T. longibrachiatum, whereas one single strain turned out to be T. citrinoviride. Both species are very closely related and belong to Trichoderma section Longibrachiatum. These data indicate that the occurrence of pathogenic Trichoderma strains may be restricted to species of section Longibrachiatum.