Morphological and molecular characterization of culturable leaf endophytic fungi from Malabar Spinach: The first report

Abstract

To isolate and identify the cultivable leaf endophytic fungi of Basella alba L. and B. rubra L., healthy and fresh leaves were chosen and collected from Sri Devaraj Urs Academy of Higher Education and Research college botanical garden. Authenticated materials were made into small bits, surface sterilized by applying the standard protocol and cultured on a potato dextrose agar plate supplemented with appropriate antibiotics, incubated for 7 to10 days at 28 ̊C. Seed borne fungal endophytes were also identified by keeping scarified seeds on sterilized agarose. A phylogenetic tree was constructed for the fungi of both the plants. A total of 26 and 19 endophytic cultivable fungi were isolated from B. alba and B. rubra respectively. Majority of the endophytes belongs to the genus Alternaria and several genera in class Dothideomycetes. Our preliminary observation indicated that the vertically transmitted endophytic fungi are the dominant endophytes of the selected plants. We conclude that Alternaria is predominant in both the plants. The mechanism of transition of the microbe from being non-pathogenic in its host to being pathogenic in other plants needs to be studied and elucidated.