Incidence of Keratinophilic Fungi from the Selected Soils of Kaziranga National Park, Assam (India) Sunil Kumar Deshmukh . Shilpa Amit Verekar . Yashwant G. Chavan Received: 25 June 2016 / Accepted: 24 October 2016 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016 Abstract Seventy-eight soil samples were collected from the various locations in the vicinity of Kaziranga National Park (Assam), India, during April to October 2009 and screened for the presence of keratinophilic fungi using the hair baiting techniques for isolation. Thirty-nine isolates were recovered and identified by recognition of their macro- and micromorphological features. Their identification was also confirmed by the BLAST search of sequences of the ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 rDNA region against the NCBI/GenBank data and compared with deposited sequences for identification purpose. Eleven species related to seven genera were recorded viz. Aphanoascus durus (1.28%), Arthro- derma tuberculatum (3.84%), Arthroderma cornicu- latum (1.28%), Chrysosporium indicum (16.66%), C. tropicum (3.84%), Ctenomyces serratus (5.12%), Keratinophyton punsolae (1.28%), Microsporum appendiculatum (1.28%), Microsporum gypseum com- plex (11.53%), Trichophyton mentagrophytes (11.28%) and T. terrestre (2.56%). Keywords Kaziranga National Park  Assam  Soil fungi  Keratinophilic fungi  India Introduction Keratinophilic fungi are an ecologically significant group of fungi that decompose keratin—animal-origin protein—which is one of the most abundant and highly stable proteins on earth. They utilize it as a nutrient substrate for growth. The distribution of these fungi depends on different factors, one of which, of vital importance, is human and/or animal presence [1]. Vanbreuseghem reported for the first time the pres- ence of dermatophytes in soil [2] using the hair bait technique. Since then, researchers across the globe are using hair bait technique for the isolation of ker- atinophilic fungi from soil [3–8]. Some of these fungi are well-known dermatophytes and are known to cause superficial cutaneous infections (dermatophytoses) of keratinized tissues (skin, hair and nails) of humans and animals. Kaziranga National Park (latitudes 26°30 0 N and 26°45 0 N and longitudes 93°08 0 E to 93°36 0 E) is one of S. K. Deshmukh (&) TERI-Deakin Nano Biotechnology Centre, The Energy and Resources Institute, Darbari Seth Block, IHC Complex, Lodhi Road, New Delhi 110 003, India e-mail: sunil.deshmukh@teri.res.in S. A. Verekar Department of Microbiology, St. Xavier’s College – Autonomous, 5, Mahapalika Marg, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400 001, India e-mail: shilfa1@rediffmail.com Y. G. Chavan Dr. D. Y. Patil Biotechnology and Bioinformatics Institute, Tathwade, Dr. D. Y. Patil University, Pimpri, Pune 411018, India e-mail: yashwant.chavan@geneombiotechnologies.com 123 Mycopathologia DOI 10.1007/s11046-016-0083-7