Comparison of Two Commercially Available qPCR Kits for the Detection of .

is an emerging pathogen with resistance to many commonly used antifungal agents. Infections with require rapid and reliable detection methods to initiate successful medical treatment and contain hospital outbreaks. Conventional identification methods are prone to errors and can lead to misidentifications. PCR-based assays, in turn, can provide reliable results with low turnaround times. However, only limited data are available on the performance of commercially available assays for detection. In the present study, the two commercially available PCR assays ID (OLM, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK) and Fungiplex RUO Real-Time PCR (Bruker, Bremen, Germany) were challenged with 29 isolates from all five clades and eight other species as controls. ID reliably detected with a limit of detection (LoD) of 1 genome copies/reaction. However, false positive results were obtained with high DNA amounts of the closely related species and . The Fungiplex RUO Real-Time PCR kit detected with an LoD of 9 copies/reaction. No false positive results were obtained with this assay. In addition, could also be detected in human blood samples spiked with pure fungal cultures by both kits. In summary, both kits could detect -DNA at low DNA concentrations but differed slightly in their limits of detection and specificity.