Epidemiology of cutaneous mycosis in the Medina region of Saudi Arabia correlated with studying the effect of light-induced gold nanoparticles on the growth of dermatophytes in vitro

Abstract

A total of 145 clinical cases were diagnosed, 137 were found to be positive cases of cutaneous fungal infection. Among all one hundred and thirty seven positive cases, superficial mycoses cases of tinea versicolor caused by Malassezia furfur were found to be the most frequent representing (42.3%) of the total, the remaining (51.1%) and (6.6%) were cases of cutaneous mycoses caused by dermatophytes and Candida albicans respectively. Tinea capitis was the most frequent among clinical case caused by dermatophytes representing (21.2%) of the total, followed by tinea pedis (9.5%) and tinea corporis (8.1%), the rest of the clinical tinea cases recorded were of low occurrence. The most frequently isolated causal agents of cutaneous mycoses caused by dermatophytes were Microsporum canis (15.4%), Trichophyton metagrophytes (11.7%), and Trichophyton violaceum (11%). Screening for keratinolytic activity showed that Microsporum canis and Tinea verrucosum recorded the highest value, while the rest of the dermatophytes gave lower values. When light-induced gold nanoparticles was tested against dermatophytes in vitro inhibitory effect on spore germination of dermatophyte isolates was observed, the percentage of inhibition in spore germination ranged from 87.5% to complete inhibition of spore germination.