The mycoparasitic fungus Clonostachys pityrodes: phylogenetic analysis as a tool for molecular identification

BICH G. A.; PEDROZO T.; VILLALBA L. L.; ZAPATA P. D.; CASTRILLO M. L.

Journal of Bacteriology & Mycology

MedCrave

Lugar: Budapest; Año: 2021 vol. 9 p. 139 - 141

Biological control is a promising and sustainable strategy to reduce damage causedby agricultural pests and the use of chemical fungicides. Fungal strains of the genusClonostachys are studied as biocontrol agent of fungi and nematodes. However, thepresence of this fungus in the soils of Misiones remains unexplored. Traditional fungalidentification is generally carried out by morphological characterization in Petri dishes,and by observing their reproductive structures under the microscope. In general, with thismethodology it is possible to identify to the genus level, however determining up to thespecies level is usually very complicated in some genera and many times ambiguities areachieved. In this context, molecular data emerges as an important tool to complementmorphological information and thus achieve a correct fungal identification. The objective ofthis work was to molecularly identify with ITS markers a strain of the mycoparasitic fungusClonostachys HEP30. The nucleic acids were isolated for molecular corroboration. Fromthe extracted genetic material, the ITS1-5,8S-ITS2 region was amplified and sequenced.Once the region of interest was obtained, the information obtained was compared withthat existing in the databases, using the Blast (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) of theNCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information) and the fungal barcoding databaseand then phylogenetic analysis was done. The molecular identification and phylogeneticanalysis allowed us to classify the fungal isolate Clonotachys HEP 30 with high percentageof identity as a member of Clonostachys pityrodes species.