Analysis of fungal diversity in intestines of Hepialus gonggaensis larvae

Abstract:

[Objective] Studied fungi diversity in the guts of larval Hepialus gonggaensis using culture-independent and traditional culturing methods. [Methods]For the culture-independent method, the total DNA of fungus was extracted from the in-testinal contents and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions were amplified with fungal universal primers. A near-full length ITS gene library was constructed. Subsequently, the fingerprints of the microorganisms were analyzed by isolated plasmid and digestion with MspⅠ, HaeⅢand TaqⅠenzymes, respectively. Restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis based on the fungal ITS sequences indicated that the library established includes 23 operational taxonomic units (OTUS) and a phylogenetic tree depicted the linkage of the isolated fungi. [Results]Abundant fungi were in the intestines of H. gonggaensis larvae, but their abundance was very different. The dominant fungi belonged to Mor-tierellaone and Trichosporon and accounted for 46.34 % and 39.02 % of the total ITS clones, respectively. Only three genera of fungi were identified from eight isolated fungal populations by traditional culturing methods. [Conclusion] We could get more information by combined traditional culturing and molecular biology methods.