Isolation, Phenotypic and Molecular Characterization of the Oyster Mushroom Pleurotus spp. and Evaluation of Its Efficacy in Producing the Antibiotic Pleurotin

Abstract

Fruit bodies of the oyster mushroom, Pleurotus, were collected for 5 isolates symbolized by Has.AA-10, Has.AA-11, Has.AA-12, Has.AA-13 and Has. AA-14, which was initially diagnosed according to phenotypic characteristics. Fungal isolates were identified to the species level using the nucleotide sequence analysis method for 5.8S rRNA as P.ostreatus .strain Has.AA-10, P. floridanus strain Has.AA-12, P. cornucopiae strain Has.AA-13, P. cystidiosus strain Has.AA-11 and P. eryngii var. ferulae strain Has.AA-14 and registered in the world Gene Bank at the NCBI website with accession numbers KX688447.1, MK281340.1, KX787088.1, AB115054.1 and KU612924.1, respectively. The purity of pleurotin was tested by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) which showed a concentration of 7.68 μg/ml for the purified pleurutin from Pleurotus spp. The results showed that the highest pluorotin was recorded in presence of crushed sunflower seeds and wheat bran compared with the absence of those supplements in all tested media, while the results showed that no pluorutin was recorded as a result of the non-growth of all Pleurotus spp. in all media supplemented with crushed soybeans. The highest plurotin reached 24.67, 24, 21.35 and 20.99 mg/L in the treatment of P. cornucopiae grown in the (wheat straw + rice husks mixture), (barley straw + rice husk mixture), wheat straw and corn cobs supplemented with crushed sunflower seeds, respectively, while the lowest plurotin concentrations were 0.26, 1.13, 2.11 and 2.66 mg/L in Pleurotus eryngii var. ferulae grown in the unsupplemented corn cobs, wheat straw, (wheat straw + rice husks mixture) and (barley straw + rice husks mixture), respectively.