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Endophytic Fungal Flora from Roots and Fruits of an Indian Neem Plant Azadirachta indica A. Juss., and Impact of Culture Media on their Isolation

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Abstract

Azadirachta indica A. Juss. (neem), native to India, is well known worldwide for its insecticidal and ethanopharmacological properties. Although endophytic microbes are known from this plant as only leaves and stems were the subjects of past reports. Now, a variety of procedures and a number of different media were used to isolate the maximum number of endophytic fungi from unripe fruits and roots. A total of 272 isolates of 29 filamentous fungal taxa were isolated at rate of 68.0% from 400 samples of three different individual trees (at locations-Az1, Az2, Az3). Mycological agar (MCA) medium yielded the highest number of isolates (95, with a 14.50% isolation rate) with the greatest species richness. Mycelia Sterilia (1, 2, 3) accounted for 11.06%, Coelomycetes 7.25%, while Hyphomycetes showed the maximum number of representative isolates (81.69%). Mycelia-Sterilia (1, 2, 3), based on their 5.8S ITS 1, ITS2 and partial 18S and 28S rDNA sequences were identified as Fusarium solani (99%), Chaetomium globosum (93%) and Chaetomium globosum (93%) respectively. Humicola, Drechslera, Colletotrichum, and Scytalidium sp. were some of the peculiar fungal endophytes recovered from this plant.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to CSIR and UGC New Delhi for providing financial assistance. Author (Gary Stroble) expresses his appreciation to the Montana Agricultural Experiment Station and the US national Science Foundation for their support of this work. Author (Lori Baulanger) appreciates the H. Hughes grant to Scott Strobel of Yale University for its support of on this project. Author (Ravindra Kharwar) is thankful to CSIR for financial assistance (File No.EMR II 05-38/1104) and also to DST New Delhi, for award of ‘BOYSCAST fellowship’ (SR/BY/L-02/06) 2006–2007).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mycopathology and Microbial Technology Laboratory, Centre of Advanced Study in Botany Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, 221005, India

    Vijay C. Verma, Surendra K. Gond, Anuj Kumar & Ravindra N. Kharwar

  2. Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University, 266 Whitney Avenue, New Haven, CT, 06520-8114, USA

    Lori-Ann Boulanger

  3. Department of Plant Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, 59717, USA

    Gary A. Strobel

Authors
  1. Vijay C. Verma
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  2. Surendra K. Gond
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  3. Anuj Kumar
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  4. Ravindra N. Kharwar
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  5. Lori-Ann Boulanger
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  6. Gary A. Strobel
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Correspondence to Ravindra N. Kharwar.

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Verma, V.C., Gond, S.K., Kumar, A. et al. Endophytic Fungal Flora from Roots and Fruits of an Indian Neem Plant Azadirachta indica A. Juss., and Impact of Culture Media on their Isolation. Indian J Microbiol 51, 469–476 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12088-011-0121-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12088-011-0121-6

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