Isolation, identification, and molecular diversity of indigenous isolates of Beauveria bassiana from Taif region, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The entomopathogenic fungus, Beauveria bassiana causes a disease known as the white muscadine disease in insects. Most of the entomopathogenic fungi are soil borne nature an attempt was made to collect the soil samples from various ecosystems. Therefore, the present study aimed to isolate native strains of B. bassiana and study their genetic diversity at Taif region, Saudi Arabia, using ITS of nuclear DNA and COI gene analysis by comparing of different isolates from occasional localities through the world. Ninety-four soil samples were collected from different regions at Taif. Only 11 samples had B. bassiana fungus with a ratio of 11.7%. Sequences of ITS (593 bp), and partial COI (437 bp) of these isolates were carried out and revealed that four differed in their genetics. These sequences were deposited in the DDBJ GenBank database with eight accession numbers. Consequently, the three analytical methods (MP, NJ, and ML) executed a single tree with identical topology. The tree identified the studied isolates into two main clusters; the first contained Uzbekistan and USA isolates. The Chinese isolate clustered with this group in the MP tree and was diverged as a single cluster in the NJ tree. The second clade included the newly studied four isolates from Taif and the Italian isolate. The pairwise genetic distances among the four studied isolates (D ranged between 0.002 and 0.008) showed that they were genetically closely related. Further studies are needed to indicate more differentiation among these isolates and to evaluate their efficacy against the important insect pests in Saudi Arabia.

Isolation and efficacy of the endophytic fungus, Beauveria bassiana (Bals.) Vuillemin on grapevine aphid, Aphis illinoisensis Shimer (Hemiptera: Aphididae) under laboratory conditions

“…These 2 sequences were submitted in the NCBI GenBank database with the accession numbers of MN900613 for isolate Bb-Taif1 and MN900614 for isolate Bb-Taif2. In this sense, isolate Bb-Taif1 was identical in the sequence of ITS with previous isolate (accession number: LC338054), which isolated from the soil at the same location (Sayed et al 2018). In our opinion, this finding means that the same isolate in the soil was colonized in the grapevine plants.…”

“…Generally, the virulence of the 2 tested endophytic isolates indicated that the isolate Bb-Taif1 was higher in its virulence than the Bb-Taif2 isolate. Moreover, the findings of molecular characteristic and the virulence in this study and the findings of Sayed et al (2018Sayed et al ( , 2019 showed that the isolate (Bb-Taif1) is endemic in the soil and establishment in the grapevine tissues as an endophytic fungus.…”

“…The PCR amplification was carried out to amplify a partial region of ribosomal DNA (ITS) containing 18S gene (partial sequence), internal transcribed spacer-1 (complete sequence), 5.8S gene (complete sequence), internal transcribed spacer-2 (complete sequence), and 28S gene (partial sequence). The amplification was done using specific primers (F: 5-GGAAGTAAAAGTCGTAA-CAA-3 and R: 5-TCCTCGCTTATTGATATGA-3) (Sayed et al 2018). PCR amplification was carried out in a final volume of 50 μl by mixing 2 μl of DNA with 1 μl of each primer (10 pmol), 25 μl of M7123 green master mix (Promega, USA), and 22 μl autoclaved double distilled water.…”

Efficacy of indigenous entomopathogenic fungus, Beauveria bassiana (Balsamo) Vuillemin, isolates against the rose aphid, Macrosiphum rosae L. (Hemiptera: Aphididae) in rose production

“…Four genetically different indigenous isolates of B. bassiana (Sayed et al 2018) were used in this study. These isolates were previously isolated from Taif region.…”

“…The isolation of indigenous isolates or strains of EPF from different hosts and locations provides a control program with available specific tools for controlling various indigenous pests (Zayed 2003). Four isolates of B. bassiana were isolated from Taif region (Saudi Arabia) and genetically identified (Sayed et al 2018).…”