English
Identification and Characterization of Yeast-like Fungi, Acaromyces ingoldii, an Unreported Species in Korea
Che-Yeon Park1, Seong-Keun Lim1, Seo-Ryeong Lee1, Hae-Dam Kim1, Seung-Yeol Lee1,2*, Hee-Young Jung1,2
1Department of Plant Medicine, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
2Institute of Plant Medicine, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
*Email: leesy1123@knu.ac.kr
In 2025, fungal strain designated as KNUF-25-GA222 was isolated from apple leaf samples collected from Miryang-si, Gyeongbuk province, Korea. Cultural and morphological characteristics were examined by cultivating potato dextrose agar (PDA) and yeast extract peptone glucose agar (YPGA). The production of blastoconidia was observed on PDA and YPGA, and KNUF-25-GA222 was determined to belong to the yeast-like fungi characterized by the fusiform blastoconidia on sterigma-like structures and polar budding. Blastoconidia were aseptate, hyaline with size measured 13–61 × 2–5 μm. To identify the species, molecular analyses were conducted using the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions and large subunit of 28S rRNA (LSU) gene were analyzed. BLAST result revealed that the ITS regions (556 bp) and LSU (806 bp) gene sequences showed 99.6% and 100% similarities to A. ingoldii CBS 10536, respectively. The phylogenetic tree was constructed based on sequences of the ITS regions and LSU gene using the maximum-likelihood method, and strain KNUF-25-GA222 clustered with A. ingoldii CBS 10536 in phylogenetic tree. Comparing the observed cultural and morphological characteristics of KNUF-25-GA222 with those previously reported characteristics of A. ingoldii CBS 110050T, both strains produced white, velvety, furrowed mycelia on PDA and YPGA with fusiform blastoconidia. Based on cultural and morphological characteristics with phylogenetic analyses, the strain KNUF-25-GA222 was identified as A. ingoldii, which has not been previously reported in Korea.
