title: Molecular diagnosis of onychomycosis.
abstract: Onychomycosis is a frequent cause of nail infections due to dermatophytes. Molds and yeast may also be responsible of these pathologies. Antifungal treatments are frequently given without a mycological diagnosis, partly because of the requisite time for obtaining the biological results. The mycological diagnosis requires a direct microscopic examination and a culture in order to accurately identify the fungal genus and species. Nevertheless, this conventional diagnosis is often time consuming due to the delay of fungal cultures and presents disadvantages that make it not sufficient enough to give a precise and confident response to the clinicians. Therefore additional tests have been developed to help distinguish onychomycosis from other nail disorders. Among them, molecular biology techniques offer modern and rapid tools to improve traditional microbiological diagnosis. In this review, we first present the conventional diagnosis methods for onychomycosis and then we describe the main molecular biology tools and the currently available commercial kits that allow a rapid detection of the pathology.
authors.affiliation: Structure de parasitologie-mycologie, département de microbiologie, hôpitaux de Brabois, centre hospitalo-universitaire de Nancy, 11, allée du Morvan, 54511 Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy, France.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Petinataud
authors.affiliation: Plateforme de génomique microbienne, département de microbiologie, hôpitaux de Brabois, CHU de Nancy, 11, allée du Morvan, 54511 Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy, France.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Berger
authors.affiliation: Structure de parasitologie-mycologie, département de microbiologie, hôpitaux de Brabois, centre hospitalo-universitaire de Nancy, 11, allée du Morvan, 54511 Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy, France.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Contet-Audonneau
authors.affiliation: Structure de parasitologie-mycologie, département de microbiologie, hôpitaux de Brabois, centre hospitalo-universitaire de Nancy, 11, allée du Morvan, 54511 Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy, France. Electronic address: m.machouart@chu-nancy.fr.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Machouart
mesh_terms: D005658:Fungi / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics; D005800:Genes, Fungal; D006801:Humans; D025202:Molecular Diagnostic Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D016533:Mycological Typing Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D014009:Onychomycosis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000382:microbiology; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods
keywords: Culture; Diagnosis; Diagnostic; Direct examination; Examen direct; Mycologie; Mycology; Onychomycose; Onychomycosis; Polymerase chain reaction; Réaction de polymérisation en chaîne