MOLECULAR AND PHYLOGENETIC IDENTIFICATION OF TWO NATIVE BIOCONTROL ISOLATES FROM MISIONES PROVINCE CLONOSTACHYS HEP30 AND PAECILOMYCES HEP24

PEDROZO, TT; BICH, GA; VILLALBA, LL; ZAPATA, PD; CASTRILLO, ML

Modalidad virtual

Congreso; 3rd WOMEN IN BIOINFORMATICS & DATA SCIENCE LA; 2022

Women in Bioinformatics and Data Science

Chemical pesticides, used for pest control, may have negative consequences for theenvironment and human populations. As an alternative, the use of microorganisms ortheir metabolic products as biological control agents is a promising strategy. The fungalmechanisms of invasion, persistence, and propagation characterize them as excellentbiocontrol agents. The correct identification of biotechnological potential fungalspecies in a bioproduct is a prerequisite for any biocontrol strategy. The macro-micromorphological characterization presents limitations since the morphologicalcharacteristics are subject to variations in environmental conditions and at the time ofthe fungal life cycle. In this context, molecular identification allows overcoming theselimitations. The objective of this work was to molecularly and phylogenetically identifyof two fungal isolates with biocontrol capacity Clonostachys HEP 30 and PaecilomycesHEP 24. The isolates were reactivated in Petri dishes with potato dextrose agar asculture medium. DNA from the fungal mycelium was extracted and the ITS1-5.8S-ITS2region was amplified and sequenced. Consensus contig sequences were constructedwith Geneious program. The identity and similarity were analyzed using the secondarydatabase Fungal Barcoding, and the primary database NCBI. In order to generategreater robustness to the local alignment of the isolate sequences, a phylogeneticanalysis was performed using the Neighbor Joining, Maximum Likelihood andMaximum Parsimony methods, with Mega program. In the analysis of identity andsimilarity with both databases, the isolates presented high percentages of identity(>98%) with Clonostachys pytirodes and Paecilomyces variotti species, respectively.The methods of phylogenetic analysis allowed the separation of the speciesClonostachys and Paecilomyces genera into different monophyletic clades with highBootstrap values (>90). The Clonostachys HEP30 isolate was clustered within themonophyletic clade of the C. pityrodes species, and the Paecilomyces HEP 24 isolatewas clustered within the monophyletic clade of the P. variotti species.