Abstract
During a survey of Pythium species in soils of Japan, Pythium isolates growing at high temperatures were obtained from an uncultivated field soil in Wakayama Prefecture. All six isolates showed similar morphology to each other and had complexly branched secondary hyphae, globose nonproliferating sporangia, and smooth-surfaced oogonia that have one or two oospores per oogonium. The combination of these characteristics differentiated these isolates from other Pythium species reported. Phylogenetic analyses based on sequences of the ribosomal DNA ITS and D1/D2 region of the large subunit showed that all Pythium isolates were clustered in a single clade that was distantly related to other known clades of the genus. We described these isolates as a new Pythium species, Pythium apinafurcum, based on morphology and molecular phylogeny. The P. apinafurcum isolates nonsymptomatically infected the roots of seedlings of bermudagrass, cabbage, and cucumber in a pot inoculation test.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Allain-Boulé N, Tweddell R, Mazzola M, Bélanger R, Lévesque CA (2004) Pythium attrantheridium sp. nov.: taxonomy and comparison with related species. Mycol Res 108:795–805
Belbahri L, McLeod A, Paul B, Calmin G, Moralejo E, Spies CFJ, Botha WJ, Clemente A, Descals E, Sánchez-Hernández E, Lefort F (2008) Intraspecific and within-isolate sequence variation in the ITS rRNA gene region of Pythium mercuriale sp. nov. (Pythiaceae). FEMS Microbiol Lett 284:17–27
Dick MW (2001) The Peronosporomycetes. In: McLaughlin DJ, McLaughlin EG, Lemke PA (eds) The Mycota VII. Systematics and evolution, part A. Springer, Berlin, pp 39–72
Fitch WM (1971) Towards defining the course of evolution: minimal change for a specified tree topology. Syst Zool 20:406–416
Hendrix FF, Papa KE (1974) Taxonomy and genetics of Pythium. Proc Am Phytopathol Soc 1:200–207
Kageyama K, Nakashima A, Kajihara Y, Suga H, Nelson EB (2005) Phylogenetic and morphological analyses of Pythium graminicola and related species. J Gen Plant Pathol 71:174–182
Kageyama K, Senda M, Asano T, Suga H, Ishigro K (2007) Intraisolate heterogeneity of the ITS region of rDNA in Pythium helicoides. Mycol Res 111:416–423
Kida K, Tojo M, Yano K, Kotani S (2007) First report of Pythium ultimum var. ultimum causing damping-off on okra in Japan. Plant Pathol 56:1042
Kirk PM, Cannon PF, Minter DW, Stalpers JA (2008) Ainsworth & Bisby’s dictionary of the fungi, 10th edn. CAB International, Wallingford
Lévesque CA, de Cock AWAM (2004) Molecular phylogeny and taxonomy of the genus Pythium. Mycol Res 108:1363–1383
Maddison DC, Maddison WP (2000) MacClade 4: analyses of phylogeny and character evolution. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA
Martin FN (2000) Phylogenetic relationships of some Pythium species inferred from sequence analysis of the mitochondrially encoded cytochrome oxidase I and II genes. Mycologia 92:711–727
Matsumoto C, Kageyama K, Suga H, Hyakumachi M (1999) Phylogenetic relationships of Pythium species based on ITS and 5.8S sequences of the ribosomal DNA. Mycoscience 40:321–331
Matsumoto C, Kageyama K, Suga H, Hyakumachi M (2000) Intraspecific DNA polymorphisms of Pythium irregulare. Mycol Res 104:1333–1341
Middleton JT (1943) The taxonomy, host range and geographic distribution of the genus Pythium. Torrey Bot Club Mem 20:1–171
Moralejo E, Clemente A, Descals E, Belbahri L, Calmin G, Lefort F, Spies CF, McLeod A (2008) Pythium recalcitrans sp. nov. revealed by multigene phylogenetic analysis. Mycologia 100:310–319
Morita Y, Tojo M (2007) Modification of PARP medium using fluazinam, miconazole, and nystatin for detection of Pythium spp. in soil. Plant Dis 91:1591–1599
Nechwatal J, Mendgen K (2006) Pythium litorale sp. nov., a new species from the littoral of Lake Constance, Germany. FEMS Microbiol Lett 255:96–101
Nechwatal J, Wielgoss A, Mendgen K (2005) Pythium phragmitis sp. nov., a new species close to P. arrhenomanes as a pathogen of common reed (Phragmites australis). Mycol Res 109:1337–1346
O’Donnell K (1993) Fusarium and its near relatives. In: Reynoldes DR, Taylor JW (eds) The fungal holomorph: mitotic, meiotic and pleomorphic speciation in fungal systematics. CAB International, Wallingford, pp 225–233
Page RDM (1996) TREEVIEW: an application to display phylogenetic trees on personal computers. Comput Appl Biosci 12:357–358
Paul B (2002) ITS1 region of the rDNA of Pythium proliferatum, a new species: its taxonomy and its comparison with related species. FEMS Microbiol Lett 206:191–196
Paul B (2003) Pythium carbonicum, a new species isolated from a spoil heap in northern France: the ITS region, taxonomy and comparison with related species. FEMS Microbiol Lett 209:269–274
Paul B (2006) A new species of Pythium isolated from a vineyard in France. FEMS Microbiol Lett 263:194–199
Paul B, Bala K (2008) A new species of Pythium with inflated sporangia and coiled antheridia, isolated from India. FEMS Microbiol Lett 282:251–257
Perneel M, Tambong JT, Adiobo A, Foloren C, Saborío F, Lévesque A, Höfte M (2006) Intraspecific variability of Pythium myriotylum isolated from cocoyam and other host crops. Mycol Res 110: 583–593
Riethmüller A, Voglmayr H, Goker M, Weiß M, Oberwinkler F (2002) Phylogenetic relationships of the downy mildews (Peronosporales) and related groups based on nuclear large subunit ribosomal DNA sequences. Mycologia 94:834–849
Schmitternner AF (1972) Significance of populations of Pythium and Phytophthora in soils. In: Toussoun TA, Bega RV, Nelson PE (eds) Root diseases and soil-borne pathogens. University of California Press, Berkeley, pp 25–27
Stamatakis A (2006) RAxML-VI-HPC: maximum likelihood-based phylogenetic analyses with thousands of taxa and mixed models. Bioinformatics 22:2688–2690
Swofford DL (2003) PAUP*: phylogenetic analysis using parsimony (*and other methods), version 4.0b10. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA
Thompson JD, Gibson TJ, Plewniak F, Jeanmougin F, Higgins DG (1997) The CLUSTAL X windows interface: flexible strategies for multiple sequence alignment aided by quality analyses tools. Nucleic Acids Res 25:4876–4882
Uzuhashi S, Tojo M, Kobayashi S, Tokura K, Kakishima M (2008) First records of Pythium aquatile and P. macrosporum isolated from soils in Japan. Mycoscience 49:276–279
van der Plaats-Niterink AJ (1981) Monograph of the genus Pythium. Stud Mycol 21:1–242
Villa NO, Kageyama K, Asano T, Suga H (2006) Phylogenetic relationships of Pythium and Phytophthora species based on ITS rDNA, cytochrome oxidase II and β-tubulin gene sequences. Mycologia 98:410–422
Watanabe T (1981) Distribution and population of Pythium species in the northern and southern parts of Japan. Ann Phytopathol Soc Jpn 47:449–456
Watanabe T (1994) Pictorial atlas of soil and seed fungi. Lewis, Boca Raton
White TJ, Bruns T, Lee SB, Taylor J (1990) Amplification and direct sequencing of fungal ribosomal RNA genes for phylogenetics. In: Gelfand M, Sninsky D, White T (eds) PCR protocols: a guide to methods and applications. Academic Press, San Diego, pp 315–322
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
About this article
Cite this article
Uzuhashi, S., Tojo, M., Kobayashi, S. et al. Pythium apinafurcum: its morphology, molecular phylogeny, and infectivity for plants. Mycoscience 50, 281–290 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10267-009-0486-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10267-009-0486-0