Advanced Research Journal of Immunology and Virology Vol. 1 (4), pp. 069-072, December, 2013.© Advanced Scholars Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Biodiversity of cultivable fungi in hair samples from tree shrews

Aihua Liu¹, Fukai Bao²*, Malin Li³, Min Shi², Jongkon saising⁴ and Peiqing Shen⁵

¹Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Kunming Medical University, Kunming 650031,China.

²Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Kunming Medical University, Kunming 650031,China.

³Key Laboratory of Pharmacology for Naturals Products in Yunnan Province, Kunming Medical University, Kunming 650031,China.

⁴Faculty of Science, Prince of Songkla University, Hatyai, Songkla 90112,Thailand.

⁵Office of Laboratory Animal Management of Yunnan Province, Kunming 650031,China. 

*Correspondence author. E-mail: [email protected], [email protected].  Tel: 0086-871-5922857, 5314539, 13888369882.

Accepted 29 November, 2013

Abstract

Diverse fungal species live on the surfaces of plant tissues, some of which presumably occur in a mutualistic association. Some fungal species are widespread and can be found in many different animal species, whereas others are highly specific to single hosts. In this study, we investigated the taxonomic identities and phylogenetic relationships of fungal species isolated from tree shrew hair samples, using a combination of morphological and molecular approaches. Morphological differences among the seventy-one fungal isolates indicate that diverse distinct morphotypes might be present on the hosts. Seven representative isolate taxa were selected for further molecular phylogenetic analysis using nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS1 and ITS2) DNA sequencing. The 71 endophytes were identified to the species level based on fungal sequences with known identities in GenBank. Our results suggest that 7 fungal genera are the dominant fungal parasites on the tree hairs.

Key words: Tree shrew, cultivable fungi, phylogeny, taxonomy.