A Combined Morpho-Molecular approach towards identification of Curvularia species

Curvularia is a widespread air-borne facultative pathogen of soil and plants, which mostly survive as a saprophyte in tropical and sub-tropical regions. It is a dematiceous, filamentous fungus. Curvularia spp. are darkly pigmented fungi with spores (curved conidia) efficiently adapted for most aerial dissemination. A set of 52 Curvularia isolates from Delhi-NCR region, ITCC, MTCC and NFCCI were collected and molecularly characterized and confirmed using ITS sequences from NCBI database as C. aeria, C. affinis, C. australiensis, C. borreriae, C. catenulate, C. clavata, C. eragrostidis, C. geniculate, C. inaequalis, C. lunata, C. pallescens, C. prasadii, C. specifera, C. trifolli, C. tuberculata and C. verruculosa. Identity of these isolates was confirmed through NCBI data base using ITS region sequences. The identification percentage was found to be 90–100%