Morphomolecular identification of Trichoderma sp. and their mycoparasitic activity against soil borne pathogens

This study was carried out to identify and characterize Trichoderma species isolated from rhizospheric soil of Uttar Pradesh, India, by using single spore technique. Morphological, cultural and molecular characterization were done with sequence analysis of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region. The classes were compared with morphological identification and rDNA sequence data for every class of all Trichoderma strains were of the same identity. These strains belonged to T. harzianum (Th azad), T. viride (01PP), T. asperellum (T_asp/CSAU), T. Koningii [T_K (CSAU)], T. atroviride (71L), T. longibrachiatum (21PP), T. virens [T_vi (CSAU)], T. reesei [Tr (CSAU)], T. aggressivum [T.agg(CSAU)], T. aureoviride [T. avi (CSAU)], T. citrinoviride [T. cvi (CSAU)], T. erinaceum [T. eri (CSAU)], T. koningiopsis [T. kop (CSAU)], T. tomentosum [T. tos (CSAU)], T. mintisporum [T. mip (CSAU)], T. pubscenes [T. sce (CSAU)], T. saturnisporum [T. ssp (CSAU)], T. spirale [T. sp. (CSAU)]. Morphological studies were based on the colony appearance, growth rate and microscopic features such as branching patterns of conidiophores, the arrangement of phialospores and their shape, size and color. The 5.8S-ITS regions of the Trichoderma strains were amplified using ITS1 and ITS4 primers. The rRNA based analysis is a central method used not only to explore microbial diversity but also to identify new strains. Validations of ITS marker with 18 Trichoderma sp. were done and their sequences were deposited at NCBI GenBank their permanent accession no. were allotted.