Trichophyton rubrum is a dominating superficial dermatophyte, whose conidial germination is corre- lated to pathopoiesis and a highly important developmental process. To investigate the changes of physiology, biochemistry and cytology during the germination, we selected 3364 function identified ESTs from T. rubrum cDNA library to construct cDNA microarrays, and compared the gene expression levels of conidia and germinating phase. Data analysis indicated that 335 genes were up-regulated during the germination, which mainly encoded translated, modified proteins and structural proteins. The constituents of cell wall and cell membrane were synthetized abundantly, suggesting that they are the foundation of cell morphogenesis. The ingredients of the two-component signal transduction sys- tem were up-regulated, presuming that they were important for the conidial germination. Genes of various metabolic pathways were expressed prosperously, especially the genes that participated in glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation were up-regulated on the whole, demonstrating that in the environment with sufficient oxygen and glucose, conidia obtained energy through aerobic respiration. This paper provides important clues which are helpful to understanding the changes in gene expres- sion, signal conduction and metabolism characteristics during T. rubrum conidial germination, and possess significant meaning to the study of other superficial dermatophytes. Trichophyton rubrum is a dominating superficial dermatophyte, whose conidial germination is corre- lated to pathopoiesis and a highly important developmental process. To investigate the changes of physiology, biochemistry and cytology during the germination, we selected 3364 function identified ESTs from T. rubrum cDNA library to construct cDNA microarrays, and compared the gene expression levels of conidia and germinating phase. Data analysis indicated that 335 genes were up-regulated during the germination, which facsimily translated, modified proteins and structural proteins. The constituents of cell wall and cell membrane were synthetized abundantly, suggesting that they are the foundation of cell morphogenesis. The ingredients of the two-component signal transduction sys- tem were up-regulated, presuming that they were important for the conidial germination. Genes of various metabolic pathways were expressed prosperously, especially the genes that participated in glycolysis a nd oxidative phosphorylation were up-regulated on the whole, demonstrating that in the environment with sufficient oxygen and glucose, conidia obtained energy through aerobic respiration. This paper provides helpful through understanding the changes in gene expres- sion, signal conduction and metabolism characteristics during T. rubrum conidial germination, and possess significant meaning to the study of other superficial dermatophytes.