Abstract
Dendrobium is the largest genus of tropical epiphytic orchid, some of which are traditional Chinese medicinal plants. The therapeutic components varied significantly among species. Endophytic microbes (fungi) hidden in medicinal plants may play an important effect on the overall quality of herb. Investigation of fungal composition in host plants is the first step toward elucidating the relationship endophyte-therapeutic content of herbal medicine. In this study, 401 culturable fungal endophytes were isolated and identified from 10 species of medicinal Dendrobium based on morphological and molecular techniques. The results showed that endophytic fungi from Dendrobium plants exhibited high biodiversity (37 genera, about 80 species). Acremonium, Alternaria, Ampelomyces, Bionectria, Cladosporium, Colletotrichum, Fusarium, Verticillium and Xylaria were the dominant fungal endophytes. Tropical epiphytic orchids appear to vary in degree of host specificity in their endophytic fungi.
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Acknowledgments
This investigation was supported by the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (2008AA09Z405), National S&T Major Special Project on Major New Drug Innovation (2009ZX09301-003-3-3) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (30900004). We thank Dr. Liang-Dong Guo, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, for providing references of fungi identification.
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Juan Chen and Ke-Xing Hu are contributed equally to this work.
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Chen, J., Hu, KX., Hou, XQ. et al. Endophytic fungi assemblages from 10 Dendrobium medicinal plants (Orchidaceae). World J Microbiol Biotechnol 27, 1009–1016 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11274-010-0544-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11274-010-0544-y