The application of MALDI-TOF MS for dermatophyte identification

Dermatophytes are keratinolytic fungi responsible for a wide variety of diseases of the skin, nails and hair of mammals. Their identification is often complicated, labor-intensive and time consuming due to the high degree of intra-species morphological similarity, and also requires scientific knowledge and practice. The aim of this study was to demonstrate that MALDI-TOF MS technique may be a faster and more sophisticated method useful for the identification of dermatophytes and mycoses in general.