Tengu-no-Mugimeshi is a soil-like mass of microorganisms that was collected on Japan’s Mount Kurohime in 1939. It was sealed in glass bottles and preserved at an elementary school in Nagano City for 80 years. Upon opening the bottle, a single verticillium-like fungal strain, FKI-9593 (=IFM 64743), was isolated from the preserved material. Using a combination of micro-morphological characteristics and multigene phylogeny (SSU, LSU and TEF), the isolate was identified as Lecanicillium aphanocladii. A culture broth of the organism was used to test for antimicrobial activity against 13 selected microbes. As a result, weak antibacterial activity against Proteus vulgaris NBRC 3167 was confirmed. Structural analysis identified the active compound as the polyketide metabolite, oosporein.

We evaluated the utility of Homolka's perlite protocol (HPP) for the long-term cryopreservation of 105 strains of 33 ectomycorrhizal basidiomycete species maintained at the National Institute of Technology and Evaluation’s Biological Resource Center in an ultra-low-temperature (-80℃) freezer. Of the 105 strains, 86 were viable and 19 revived poorly after 5 years storage at -80℃. The effects of the storage temperature on viability and hyphal growth after freezingthawing after 5 or 6 years of preservation were evaluated in 25 strains that showed poor or fluctuating viability. Of these, seven strains had better revival rates after storage at -170℃ than at -80℃, and the colony diameters of the revived cultures were significantly larger after storage at -170℃ than after storage at -80℃. Thus, HPP is a useful longterm preservation method for many ectomycorrhizal basidiomycete cultures, and a lower storage temperature (-170℃) resulted in better survival and viability of the frozen cultures.