Molecular epidemiology of Arthroderma benhamiae, an emerging pathogen of dermatophytoses in Japan, by polymorphisms of the non-transcribed spacer region of the ribosomal DNA.

In Japan, several isolates of Arthroderma benhamiae, a teleomorphic member of Trichophyton mentagrophytes complex, which were not found by earlier mating studies, have recently been recovered from human and animal dermatophytoses. In the present study, intraspecies polymorphism of A. benhamiae isolated in Japan was investigated using restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLP) of the non-transcribed spacer (NTS) region of the ribosomal DNA (rDNA), a method introduced to detect intraspecies polymorphisms of other dermatophyte species, such as T. rubrum. Based on their restriction profiles, there were five DNA types out of eight strains of A. benhamiae isolated in Japan. None of the five DNA types were found among the registered tester strains of A. benhamiae. Therefore, several different strains of A. benhamiae may have been brought into Japan separately.