Screening of endophytic fungi in Brassica oleracea roots

Abstract

Endophytes are fungi that infect plants without causing symptoms of diseases. There is a large biological diversity among endophytes, and it is not rare for some plant species to be hosts of more than one hundred different endophytic species. Endophytes are gaining attention as a subject for research and applications in Plant Pathology. This is because in some cases, plants associated to endophytes have shown increased resistance to plant pathogens. In this experiment, we have screened the presence of endophytes in the roots of five Brassica oleracea local populations. The isolated fungal endophytes were identified based on the morphological traits and fungal ITS1-5.8S-ITS4 region sequence analysis. From all the roots analyzed, we found 24 different genera. Acrocalymma vagum, Setophoma terrestris and Fusarium oxysporum were the most abundant species, with a percentage of 24%, 22% and 13% of the total samples analyzed, respectively. Other endophytes, recognized by its beneficial effects on plants like Trichoderma hamatum or Penicillium janthinellum, were also found in B. oleracea roots.