Distinction of Deep versus Superficial Clinical and Nonclinical Isolates of Trichosporon beigelii by Isoenzymes and Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphisms of rDNA Generated by

Fifteen clinical and environmental strains of Trichosporon beigelii were analyzed for similarities by using morphological features, biochemical profiles based on carbon compound assimilation and uric acid utilization, isoenzyme electrophoresis, and restriction fragment length polymorphisms of a segment of genes coding for rRNA expanded with the polymerase chain reaction. The findings suggest that strains that cause invasive disease are distinct from the superficial and the nonclinical isolates and that isolates from the skin and mucosae represent a number of different organisms, including some environmental forms. The study shows that T. beigelii is a complex of genetically distinct organisms and that more than one type is found in clinical samples. Trichosporon beigelii (Kuchenmeister et Rabenhorst) Vuillemin is an emerging pathogen in immunocompromised patients. Although long known as the cause of white piedra in immunologically normal hosts, increasingly this basidio-mycetous, arthroconidial yeast is being reported as an op-portunistic pathogen causing deep-seated and disseminated infections in immunocompromised patients (9, 24-26). Cur-rent taxonomical treatment in The Yeasts (12) places T