Vol. 11, Issue 8 (2022)

Author(s):
BD Ramteke, KD Thakur, SB Bramhankar, SP Gawande, SS Isokar and Diksha Ramteke

Abstract:
The entomopathogenic fungus Lecaniicillium spp. is a naturally available biological control and it is considered to be one of the best mycoinsecticide agents against the destructive sucking pests of cotton like whitefly and mealy bugs. In this study molecular detection by polymerase chain reaction with specific primers ITS1 and ITS4 was performed on 3 isolates of Lecaniicillium spp. The pattern showed by PCR analysis was identical for all the isolates tested confirming their identity as Lecaniicillium spp. The ITS1/ITS4 rDNA sequences were compared with those available in the NCBI GenBank database for Lecaniicillium spp. (accession number: MW131533).The amplification of the ITS region resulted in a single product size of 600 bp for the isolate VL-2 (Lecaniicillium sp.). The Clustal W alignments and phylogenetic analysis confirmed the taxonomic identity of the potential entomopathogenic isolate, evaluated in the present study as Lecaniicillium sp. with accession numbers MN889410.1, KT446000.1, MF-770736.1 and MW131533.1 (VL-2) isolates grouped in the same cluster with more than 93% sequence similarity of NCBI GenBank database. The other isolates were also matched > 93% sequence similarity, however clustered into three major clustered. Thus, indicating the variation among the different isolates as per geographical variations, hosts and genetic relatedness among Lecaniicillium sp. isolates.