The sequences of the primers and pr

The sequences of the primers and probes used in this study are shown in Table 1. The pan-fungal primer set (forward: ITS1F;reverse: ITS1R), Trichophyton primer set (forward: ITS1F2; reverse:ITS1R2), specific T. rubrum probe (TR-ITS1V), specific T. mentagrophytesprobe (TM-ITS1F), and pan-fungal probe (PF-ITS1N) weredesigned with MEGA4 alignment software [22] and Primer Express(Applied Biosystems, CA, USA), based on the upstream anddownstream sequences of the ITS1 region of the ribosomal RNAgene (rDNA) of major pathogenic fungi (Fig. 1). These primers andfluorescent probes were synthesized by Applied Biosystems. Theinternal control primers and internal control probe were synthesizedby Sigma–Aldrich (MO, USA).