Several kinds of pigments of the mycelium of Trichophyton violaceum were separated by column chromatography. The major one was obtained in yellow-coloured crystalline form and identified to be Xanthomegnin isolated from Trichophyton megnini by Blank et al. (6, 7), showing the identical infra-red and ultra-violet spectra, the Rf value on thin-layer chromatogram and coulor reactions.

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The intracellular components of some microorganisms, including bacteria and fungi (1-3), especially yeasts (4-8), have been already studied by means of cytochemical and electron-microscopic methods, but concerning the dermatophyte, only a few reports are available up to date in this field of research (9-13).
Our attempts have been made to investigate the intracellular distribution of the pigments produced by the dermatophytes of which chemical entity was identified to be of quinoid type by our analytical data (14). The present communication is dealing with the fractionation of subcellular particles, particularly the isolation of mitochondria-like particles, from a species of dermatophytes, Trichophyton violaceum, which was succeeded for the first time in our laboratory.
A serious limitation imposed on such a study on the subcellular fractionations of dermatophytes is the difficulty of preparing the material because of the rigidity of their cell walls. First, we tried to disrupt the cells with Potter homogenizer and then with ultrasonic treatment, but any satisfactory result could not be obtained. The recent development of a new cell-breaking apparatus capable of rupturing cell wall has now overcome such a limitation.

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