Table 3.

Arguments supporting and opposing the simultaneous recognition of T. interdigitale and T. mentagrophytes

Arguments	Conclusions	References
Monophyly: multilocus phylogeny or phylogenomic data	TI and TM are not monophyletic	ITS + actin + tubb (Beguin et al.9); ITS + LSU + tubb (Pchelin et al.64); ITS + LSU + tubb + 60S L10 (de Hoog et al.10); ITS+ LSU + tubb (Suh et al.23); ITS + tef1-α (Tang et al.12); ITS + tef1-α + tubb (this study); phylogenomic data: Pchelin et al.59; Singh et al.65
Unique morphology (strains identified using molecular methods)	TI and TM cannot be reliably differentiated in practice (no strong features without significant overlap)	Heidemann et al.4; Dhib et al.22; Frías-De-León et al.45; Tang et al.12; this study
Unique clinical manifestation	TI is more frequently associated with onychomycosis and tinea pedis compared with TM	Heidemann et al.4; Dhib et al.22; Pchelin et al.59; Taghipour et al 17; Klinger et al.3; this study
Source of infection	TI is almost exclusively anthropophilic and TM is predominantly zoophilic	Heidemann et al.4; Nenoff et al.19; Taghipour et al.17; Klinger et al.3
Differentiation of TI and TM is important for treatment choice	Treatment guidelines for specific clinical units (tinea pedis, onychomycosis, etc.) and antifungal susceptibility testing are superior to species identification	See Discussion
Availability of simple and reliable molecular identification techniques for clinical practice	Identification relies on ITS genotyping (time-consuming and requires expertise); MALDI-TOF MS does not reliably distinguish TI and TM	Klinger et al.3; Uhrlaß et al.16; Suh et al.23; Normand et al.62; Tang et al.61

MALDI-TOF MS, Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry; TI, T. interdigitale; TM, T. mentagrophytes.