Sequence-based identification of Japanese Armillaria species using the elongation factor-1 alpha gene.

We analyzed the sequences of three DNA regions-the translation elongation factor-1 alpha (EF-1 alpha) gene and the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and intergenic spacer (IGS) regions of ribosomal DNA-to compare their accuracy in identifying species of Japanese Armillaria. We studied 49 isolates of eight Armillaria species, A. mellea, A. ostoyae, A. nabsnona, A. cepistipes, A. gallica, A. sinapina, A. tabescens and the biological species Nagasawa E (Nag. E). Phylogenetic analyses of the ITS and IGS data helped in identifying A. mellea, A. ostoyae, A. nabsnona, A. tabescens and Nag. E but could not be used to identify A. gallica, A. cepistipes and A. sinapina. Nevertheless our analysis showed that the EF-1 alpha gene was clearly different in the eight examined species. Restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLP) of the IGS-1 region could be used to distinguish most species, but the RFLP profiles of some isolates of A. cepistipes and A. sinapina were the same even with four different restriction enzymes. In conclusion, among the techniques examined in this study, analyzing the EF-1 alpha sequence was found to be the most suitable method for identifying different species of Japanese Armillaria.