Molecular Identifi cation of Some Medicinally Important Aphyllophorales Mushrooms Based on ITS rDNA Sequences and RAPD Data

Abstract

Analysis of genetic relationship of important Aphyllophorales germplasm accessions of the National Research Centre for Mushroom, Solan, India, was conducted using RAPD and ITS rDNA sequences. RAPD profi les exhibited signifi cant variations among Trametes versicolor, Tyromyces chioneus, and Ganoderma species. Th e resulting RAPD-based phylogram grouped Ganoderma accessions into four clades. Phylogeny inferred from ITS rDNA sequence distinguished Trametes versicolor, Tyromyces chioneus, and Ganoderma sp. at the generic level due to diff erent lengths and variations of the 5.8S rDNA conserved region. At the intrageneric level, Ganoderma accessions were divided into two distinct groups based on nucleotide substitution in ITS-1 and ITS-2 regions. It is presumed that some of the Ganoderma sp. samples might be G. lucidum. Single nucleotide substitutions turned out to be more useful for genetic cataloguing of isolates within a species than sequence alignment using NCBI databse.