Mycobiota Associated with Dacryodes edulis H. J. Lam fruits sold In Rumokoro Market, Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Abstract

Dacryodes edulis H. J. Lam is a common fruit in Nigeria used to eat roasted or boiled corn. It can also be eaten alone by softening with hot water, hot ash, or by roasting on low heat. It is called “ube” in the eastern part of Nigeria. D. edulis fruits are prone to infection by fungal pathogens in the field, in transit and during storage. Proper identification of these pathogens is important in disease prevention and control. This study was carried out to isolate and identify the fungal species associated with D. edulis fruits. Fruits were obtained from Rumokoro market, Rivers State, Nigeria in January 2020. Isolation of fungi was done by Potato Dextrose (PDA) method and identification was carried out by molecular method. Fungal DNA was extracted using the Zymo Fungal/Bacterial DNA Miniprep Kit. Polymerase chain reaction amplification of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region was carried out using the primer pair: ITS4 and ITS5. BLAST search was carried out on the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) database and the fungi were identified as: Rhizopus delemar, Aspergillus oryzae and A. welwitschiae. The Phylogenetic tree was constructed to show the evolutionary relationship among the isolates and other fungal species retrieved from GenBank. The sequences of the isolates have been deposited in GenBank under the accession numbers: ON965489, ON965490 and ON965491 for Rhizopus delemar, Aspergillus oryzae and A. welwitschiae respectively. The molecular method used in this study enabled the isolates to be identified at the species levels.