The Mating Type (MAT) and Virulence of Isolates Maintained in Culture Collection.

In an attempt to determine the mating type of different isolates that remained viable after a long period of preservation in a culture collection and to correlate them with the degree of virulence/pathogenicity, a PCR technique using primers designed for the sequences of and genes and a murine experimental model were used. The results showed that there was no correlation between the mating type and virulence among the isolates. Furthermore, different degrees of virulence/pathogenicity, ranging from high to low, were found among them based on different virulence parameters. It was assumed that the long period of preservation favored the changes, yielding the isolation of variants. Thus, we believe that new technologies for studies on factors can improve our knowledge of the pathogenesis of sporotrichosis.