TITLE:
Vegetative Growth and Molecular Identification of Fusarium equiseti Isolated from Wilt Disease of Centella asiatica L. in Bangladesh
AUTHORS:
Poli Akter, Shahida Khatun, Durga Das Bhowmik, Farzana Ashrafi Neela, Nuhu Alam
KEYWORDS:
Centella asiatica (L.), Fusarium equiseti, Molecular Identification, Vegetative Growth, Wilt Disease
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Plant Sciences,
Vol.13 No.2,
February
25,
2022
ABSTRACT: Centella
asiatica (L.) is
commonly known as Thankuni plant and has ethnobotanical importance in Bangladesh. Present
experiment was conceded to investigate the wilt disease of C. asiatica, vegetative growth and molecular characterization of pathogenic fungi.
Pathogenic fungus, Fusarium equiseti was identified as a causal
agent of wilt disease in C. asiatica. The effect of culture media on the mycelial growth
of F. equiseti showed the highest (89.25 mm) on potato dextrose agar
(PDA) medium followed by carrot agar (CA) medium and the lowest growth (40.25 mm) was measured in HA
medium. The optimal temperature and pH for mycelial growth of F. equiseti were 30°C and 7,
respectively. The genetic variation of the selected species of fungi, the
internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region was amplified using ITS4 and ITS5
primers and sequenced. The PCR product of
the ITS region of F. equiseti was 535 bp. Phylogenetic tree of thirty-seven strains of Fusarium sp. based on the nucleotide sequences of the ITS region
using the neighbor-joining method with 1000
bootstrapping indicated that 98% - 100%
identity with MN886590.1 JUF0046 (F. equiseti). ITS sequences are
generally constant, or show little variation within species, but vary between
species in a genus. The ITS region is relatively short and can be easily
amplified by PCR using universal single primer pairs. Genetic distance
exhibited high level of similarity with identical ITS sequences. To date, no
published research articles are found on the molecular identification of F. equiseti, the causal agent of fusarium wilt disease of C. asiatica in Bangladesh.