Molecular identification and genetic diversity study of the Iraqi truffles

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the molecular identification of the Iraqi truffles species and a better understanding of genetic diversity in the center of the truffles habitat. Thirty-two samples were collected from the Iraqi desert and local markets. Samples were chosen depending on the morphological diversity of the fruit body and sample collection area. Results of ITS region sequencing for the 32 samples showed two genuses Tirmania and Terfezia are the main dominant, 4 species of Tirmania pinoyi and 28 species of Terfezia claveryi. All species sequences were deposited in NCBI GenBank and all had accessions number. The neighbor-Joining method was used to generate a phylogenic tree to study the genetic diversity of the ITS sequences for the 32 Iraqi truffle samples. Results showed a high genetic diversity for the Iraqi truffles samples. The phylogenic study showed Iraqi truffles clustered with different groups as a clade with the reference sequences from other countries represent three continents Asia, Africa, and Europe. Also, we found in this study a unique cluster group for the Iraqi sequences for T. pinoyi and T. claveryi truffles cluster in one group and do not match with any reference sequences used in this study. This is a piece of strong evidence proofed the Iraqi habitat could be the origin of center diversity for the T. pinoyi and T. claveryi truffles.

Characterization of Desert Truffles in the Great Moroccan Sahara: A Review

“…To face those challenges, the utilization of molecular approaches is useful in order to study intraspecific variability identification more closely [4]. To study the genetic diversity of Iraqi truffles, a team of researchers focused on a molecular study of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions of ribosomal DNA by amplification with specific primers: ITS1-F and ITS4-R, followed by electrophoresis in BET-stained agarose gel, and, finally, observation with a special UV camera [6]. They proceeded with a purification of the PCR products, blasting on the NCBI GenBank database and comparing with other sequences of the same species.…”

Morphological and Molecular Identification of New species of Coprinopsis iraqicus sp. nov. from Iraq

“…There have been many efforts for firsttime documentations and morphological classifications of macrofungi from Kurdistan region -Northern Iraq, Salah ad-Din province (north-central Iraq); Anbar province (western Iraq) (AL-Qaissi 2014, Muslat & Owaid, 2015, Al-Khesraji 2016, Suliaman et al 2017, AL-Khesraji 2018, AL-Khesraji et al 2018, Suliaman, 2019, Al-Khesraji & Suliaman, 2019. During these efforts, molecular approaches have been applied to confirm species identifications for some species (Suliaman, 2017, AL-Khesraji et al 2019, Aish et al 2020, Al-Khesraji et al 2021.…”