BENSINGTONIA MUSAE SP. NOV. ISOLATED FROM A DEAD LEAF OF MUSA PARADISIACA AND ITS PHYLOGENETIC RELATIONSHIP AMONG BASIDIOMYCETOUS YEASTS

Abstract

A new species of ballistoconidium-forming yeast, Bensingtonia musae, was isolated from a dead leaf of Musa paradisiaca collected in the southeast seacoast of Bangkok, Thailand. B. musae showed physiological and biochemical characteristics similar to B. ingoldii and B. intermedia. DNA-DNA reassociation experiments, however, showed that it was distinct from these two species. B. musae is easily distinguished from B. ingoldii by the assimilation of sucrose, cellobiose, lactose, melezitose, soluble starch and nitrate, and from B. intermedia by the assimilation of cellobiose, L-arabinose, erythritol and salicin, and the requirement of p-aminobenzoic acid and pyridoxine. In the phylogenetic tree constructed based on small subunit rRNA gene sequences, B. musae was located at a cluster which was composed of B. ciliata, the type species of the genus, B. ingoldii, B. miscanthi, B. naganoensis, B. phylladus, B. subrosea and B. yuccicola. Among these species, B. musae was the most closely related to B. ingoldii.