DNA barcoding of fungi causing infections in humans and animals

• Standardization of sequence based identification is proposed.
• DNA barcoding of pathogenic fungi in clinical settings is discussed.
• The curated ISHAM-ITS reference database is presented.
• The value of ITS region as fungal barcode is reviewed at intra/interspecies level.
• The database is accessible at http://www.isham.org/ or http://its.mycologylab.org.
• For some fungi the use of secondary barcodes may be necessary.

Correct species identification is becoming increasingly important in clinical diagnostics. Till now, many mycological laboratories rely on conventional phenotypic identification. But this is slow and strongly operator-dependent. Therefore, to improve the quality of pathogen identification, rapid, reliable, and objective identification methods are essential. One of the most encouraging approaches is molecular barcoding using the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) of the rDNA, which is rapid, easily achievable, accurate, and applicable directly from clinical specimens. It relies on the comparison of a single ITS sequence with a curated reference database. The International Society for Human and Animal Mycology (ISHAM) working group for DNA barcoding has recently established such a database, focusing on the majority of human and animal pathogenic fungi (ISHAM-ITS, freely accessible at http://www.isham.org/ or directly from http://its.mycologylab.org). For some fungi the use of secondary barcodes may be necessary.