Abstract Background: Dermatophytes are the most common causes of cutaneous fungal diseases. Dermatophytosis is a common skin disorder in dogs and cats. Species identification of these fungi is important from a therapeutic and epidemiological aspect. Conventional methods used to identify dermatophyte species are often lengthy andmay be inefficient inmany circumstances. Recently broad varieties of several molecular DNAbased techniques were successfully utilised for species detection of dermatophytes. Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine the molecular detection of dermatophyte isolates from canine and feline dermatophytosis in Mashhad, Iran. Methods: Thirty dermatophytes isolated from dogs and cats with skin lesions and one standard strain of Microsporum canis were cultured ontoMycosel agar, and then internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of the ribosomal DNA was amplified using the universal fungal primers ITS1 and ITS4. PCR products were subjected to sequencing and sequence analysis. Results: Based on the sequencing of the ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 region on all samples, all the studied strainswere M. canis and their sexual stage (teleomorph) was Arthroderma otae. Conclusions: Microsporum canis was the only species found amongdogs and cats, and its high prevalence can increase the rate of transmission to humans. In practice, ITS-PCR, with sequence analysis, is a useful and reliablemethod to identify and differentiate various pathogenic species, and it can be used in clinical and epidemiological fields, even for the rapid diagnosis of dermatophyte species that are closely interrelated.

Keywords