Strain discrimination of an edible mushroom Pleurotus ostreatus by DNA technology

Abstract

Strain discrimination technology for commercial strains by DNA technologies was surveyed using Pleurotus ostreatus as the model mushroom. The analysis of the V4 region of the small mitochondrial subunit rDNA (mt SSU rDNA) for seven strains showed 99% similarity among their sequence data, and could not actually be distinguished from each other. The analysis of sequence data for the ITS region of nuclear rDNA resolved the seven test strains into three clusters. Conversely, the DNA fingerprinting by RAPD analysis distinguished all of the test strains into individual clusters in the phylogenetic trees using the UPGMA method, suggesting that this method is most appropriate for the strain discrimination of test mushrooms.