Background
Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiologic agent of Chagas disease, infects a variety of wild mammals in the southern United States, but it has only recently been isolated from raccoons trapped in the state of Kentucky. The purpose of the present study was to use a molecular typing approach [1, 2], followed by DNA sequencing to determine the genotypes (type I, or types IIa–IIe) of 15 of the Kentucky isolates.