Abstracts of Papers Presented at the Meeting of the Mycological Society of Japan

Shiraia bambusicola is a parasitic fungus on twigs of several genera of bamboos, and its relatively large stromata have been used in Chinese medicine. S. bambusicola is widely distributed in many provinces of Southern China including several reports from Japan. Recently, phylogenetic analysis on S. bambusicola by rDNA sequence has been analyzed. However, that information of S. bambusicola was collected from only stromata in sexual stage and only one species had been proposed. Interestingly, we could isolate several Shiraia-like strains from Japanese bamboo tissues with no shown of symptom. Rapidly identification by molecular analysis, our isolates was compared rDNA sequence among ITS region with reference strains from culture collection and databank. There were low identical similarities sequences with S. bambusicola and phylogenetic relationship showed that our strains were different from S. bambusicola and closely related to unidentified Shiraia sp. ML-2004 (94-98% similarities) in lineage clade. Moreover, strains morphotypes were highly diverse. Our strains also produced structure that showed a unique character differs from anamorphic stage of S. bambusicola. Therefore, these characters and phylogenetic relationship analysis revealed a high possibility to propose a novel Shiraia-like species in a genus Shiraia.

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The genus Aplopsora (Uredinales, Chaconiaceae) containing only four accepted species is poorly circumscribed, with the biological nature, including life cycle, of each species being virtually unknown. Recently, two rust fungi morphologically allied to Aplopsora were found on Laportea bulbifera (Urticaceae) and Staphylea bumalda (Staphyleaceae), in addition to three previously confirmed Aplopsora species, A. corni, A. lonicerae and A. tanakae, in Japan. This study examined the possible phylogenetic relationships among the three Aplopsora species and two Aplopsora-like fungi by a molecular phylogenetic method analyzing ITS regions of small subunit rDNA including 5.8S rDNA and D1D2 domains of large subunit rDNA. Resulted parsimony and neighbor-joining trees showed five host-delimited clades, i.e., Amphicarpa, Cornus, Lonicera, Laportea, and Staphylea clades with the former three corresponding to A. tanakae, A. corni, and A. lonicerae. The fungi on Laportea, and Staphylea were suggested to be distinct species. Among the three species and the two undescribed fungi, A. lonicerae and the Staphylea fungus was placed in the closet position, to which the Laportea fungus was a sister group. Aplopsora corni was connected to the clade inclusive of A. lonicerae, the Staphylea fungus, and the Laportea fungus. Aplopsora tanakae, which was once named as Cerotelium tanakae, was basal to the phylogenetic tree.

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Endophytic fungi were isolated from species of Garcinia plants, of use in medicine, and screened for their antimicrobial activity against human pathogens. In order to identify the most potentially useful endophytes, a phylogenetic approach based on the internal transcribed spacer (ITS1-5.8S-ITS2) rDNA sequence was investigated. The ITS alignment and phylogenetic analysis were analysed through BioEdit V.7.0.5 and PAUP* V.4.0B10, respectively. The statistically supportive values were calculated under maximum parsimony criteria. This phylogenetic analysis indicated that eleven potentially useful endophytes belonged to five ascomycetous orders. Five of these isolates had phylogenetic affinity with a member of the Botryosphaeriaceae (Dothideales), four were identified as Guignardia mangiferae A4, A5, D3 and D9 and one was Botryosphaeria sp. M76. Two isolates were in the Nectriaceae (Hypocreales) and were identified as Fusarium sp. A1 and M41. Another two active endophytes belong to the Trichocomaceae (Eurotiales) and were identified as Penicillium paxilli A71 and Aspergillus aculeatus D2. Because of the relatedness of an anamorph-telomorph connection within the Valsaceae (Diaporthales), a single isolate was identified as Phomopsis sp. D15. Finally, one fungal sequence (N24) was inferred to belong to the Xylariales but could not be identified to a lower taxonomic level. Inhibitory activity of these endophytes was observed and reported against both bacteria and fungi. Our results indicate that Garcinia species could be a huge reservoir of various taxonomic groups of fungi with antimicrobial activity and the phylogenetic approach is an effective tool for identification of these fungal endophytes.

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