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Astragalicola ephedrae sp. nov., isolated from the stem of Ephedra gerardiana in Ladakh, India

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Abstract

An endophytic fungus designated as EIT4T (MCC 9756T) was isolated from the asymptomatic stem tissue of Ephedra gerardiana collected from the Kargil district of Ladakh Union territory, India. Phylogenetic analysis based on concatenated nuclear ribosomal ITS (internal transcribed spacer) and LSU (large ribosomal subunit) sequence datasets revealed its placement within the genus Astragalicola. However, it formed a separate clade exhibiting strong bootstrap support value (80%). The highest nrITS sequence similarity between EIT4T and species of Astragalicola was 95.19% (A. vasilyevae) and 94.26% (A. amorpha), while nrLSU sequence similarity was 99.27% (A. amorpha). Morphologically, EIT4T differs from the other species of Astragalicola in having larger sub-globose to pyriform conidiomata, smaller and mostly unbranched conidiophores, and polymorphic translucent conidia with two terminal guttules. Based on combined cultural, micromorphological, molecular, and phylogenetic analyses, EIT4T represents a novel species in the genus Astragalicola proposed here as Astragalicola ephedrae sp. nov. Detailed description and illustrations of the novel species are provided. The type strain is EIT4T (= MCC 9756 T = MN29T).

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Availability of data and material

The nrITS and nrLSU sequence data was saved as FASTQ file and deposited in GenBank, National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) under accession number MW205783 and OP476683, respectively. Holotype/ex-type (MCC 9756) culture is deposited in the culture collection of the National Center for Microbial Resource/National Center for Cell Science, Pune (Maharashtra), India.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are highly thankful to the Head, Department of Botany and UGC SAP-DRS-II for providing lab facilities and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) for granting a fellowship to the first author.

Funding

This work was supported by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Grant No. 09/100(0241)/2019-EMR-I.

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  1. Department of Botany, University of Jammu, Jammu, J&K, 180006, India

    Aroosa Jan Mattoo & Skarma Nonzom

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  1. Aroosa Jan Mattoo
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Study conception was equally conceived. Aroosa Jan Mattoo carried out data analysis (morphological and phylogenetic analysis) and wrote the manuscript. Skarma Nonzom analyzed the data and critically revised the work. Both the authors reviewed and approved the final version of the paper.

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Correspondence to Skarma Nonzom.

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Mattoo, A.J., Nonzom, S. Astragalicola ephedrae sp. nov., isolated from the stem of Ephedra gerardiana in Ladakh, India. Folia Microbiol 68, 607–615 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12223-023-01041-3

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