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Collophora aceris, a Novel Antimycotic Producing Endophyte Associated with Douglas Maple

  • Fungal Microbiology
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Abstract

A novel endophyte designated Collophora aceris, was obtained from stem tissues of Douglas Maple (Acer glabrum var. douglasii) in a Pacific Northwest temperate rainforest. Colonies were slow growing, white, creamy, moist, and translucent to opaque on potato dextrose agar and other media with few aerial hyphae. It also produced solid, dark sclerotia (200–400 μm) on oatmeal agar and no evidence of pseudopycnidia as per other Collophora spp. Conidia were rod-like in the size ranging from 2.2–8.4 × 0.8–1.8 μm and produced holoblastically on conidiogenous cells by budding with no collarette at the budding site. Phylogenetic analyses, based on 18S rDNA sequence data, showed that C. aceris possessed 99 % similarity to other Collophora spp. However, ITS-5.8S rDNA sequence data indicated that the organism was potentially related to Allantophomopsis spp. Finally, combined morphological, physiological, and molecular genetics data indicated that this organism is most like Collophora spp. but it is distinctly unique when compared to all other fungi in this group. It is to be noted that this is the first report of any member of this genus existing as an endophyte. This fungus makes a wide spectrum antimycotic agent (Collophorin) with biological activity against such pathogenic fungi as Pythium ultimum, Phytophthora cinnamomi, Phytophthora palmivora, and Rhizoctonia solani. Collophorin was purified to homogeneity and shown to have a unique mass of 120.0639, an empirical formula of C8H8O1, and UV absorption bands at 260 and 378 nm. This work also indicates that C. aceris possesses the biological potential to provide protection of its host against an array of common plant pathogens.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the financial support of Special Research Foundation of Southwest University in China (XDJK2010C097) and Chinese Scholarship Council grant (2011699519) to Jie Xie. Help from Percy Nunez Vargas of Cusco Peru, in doing the Latin translation is greatly appreciated.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Silkworm Genome Biology, College of Biotechnology, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China

    Jie Xie

  2. Department of Plant Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, 59717, USA

    Jie Xie, Gary A. Strobel, Morgan T. Mends & Jared Nigg

  3. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, 59717, USA

    Jonathan Hilmer

  4. Department of Plant and Wildlife Sciences, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, 84602, USA

    Brad Geary

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  1. Jie Xie
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  2. Gary A. Strobel
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  3. Morgan T. Mends
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  4. Jonathan Hilmer
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  5. Jared Nigg
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  6. Brad Geary
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Correspondence to Gary A. Strobel.

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Xie, J., Strobel, G.A., Mends, M.T. et al. Collophora aceris, a Novel Antimycotic Producing Endophyte Associated with Douglas Maple. Microb Ecol 66, 784–795 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-013-0281-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-013-0281-5

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