Abstract: Objective To analyze Exophiala jeanselmei strains recovered from different sources and to establish a better method for typing the strains in this species. Methods The ribosomal internal transcribed spacer regions (ITSⅡ) of 17 isolates Exophiala jeanselmei were amplified with primer ITS3 and ITS4 and digested with four restriction enzymes (HinFⅠ, MspⅠ, BsuRⅠ and RsaⅠ). Results The amplicon length of the ITSⅡ was about 330bp, and 6 types of characteristic patterns for the species were found after restriction analysis. The variants of E. jeanselmei were unrelated and should therefore be maintained as separate species. The unique patterns of isolate BMU00195 were shown,which seems probably to be a new variant or even a new species. Conclusions PCR-RFLP is useful for the typing and identification of Exophiala jeanselmei, which is important in confirming the taxonomic position of a complex species.

Key words: Exophiala jeanselmei, Random amplified polymorphic DNA technique