Identification of Phomopsis Species on Some Ornamental and Forest Plants in Iran on the Basis of the Morphological and Molecular

The Phomopsis is a genus of imperfect plant pathogenic fungus whose hosts comprise several species in different regions of the world, such as grapes, soybean, acacia, hollyhock, velvetleaf, and several other plants. In this study, samples collected from hollyhock, velvetleaf, purple bauhinia, and acacia plants suspected to be infected with Phomopsis fungi. Samples were cultured and then subjected to the separation and purification steps and morphological characteristics of the obtained isolates were done. Among the isolates, five representatives (P1 to P5) from Mazandaran province selected and their DNA, extracted. TEF and ITS regions of DNA were amplified and sequenced. The ITS (4 and 5) region from ribosomal DNA and a part of TEF gene were amplified and sequenced. The nucleotide sequence of the isolates was compared with the corresponding sequences available in the Gen Bank and phylogenetic tree of the isolates was constructed. Results showed that the sequence of the isolates P1, P2, and P4 had the highest similarity with Phomopsis malvacearum species. The sequence of isolate P3 was very similar to Phomopsis loropetali, and the sequence of the isolate P5 was very similar to Phomopsis theicola. The average size of pycnidia produced on three culture media viz, CDA, CMA and PDA was measured 16 days after incubation at 20–25°C. Size were 256 × 85 in acacia, 230 × 68 in velvetleaf, 230 × 69 in hollyhock and 193 × 47 micrometers in purple bauhinia isolates, respectively. Morphological and molecular features of the identified species were matched. Identified species here are reported from Iran for the first time. Symptoms of Phomopsis infection was varied depending on different hosts and identified species.