YEAST DIVERSITY IN THE INTESTINAL TRACT OF THE FUNGUS-GROWING TERMITE Macrotermes subhyalinus

This study investigated the diversity of yeasts involved in intestinal tract of higher termite M. subhyalinus from Côte d’Ivoire. Yeasts were absent from the digestive tract of soldiers and present in the worker termites at a load of 2.1 x 105 UFC/mL. Initial molecular identification to the species level was carried out using RFLP of PCR-amplified internal transcribed spacers of rDNA (ITS1-5.8S-ITS4). Three different profiles were obtained from the restriction of PCR products with the seven endonucleases Hae III, Hinf I, Pvu II, Alu I, Xho I, BamH I and Msp I. Sequence analysis of the ITS regions allowed us to assign these groups to two different species: Pichia kudriavzevii and Candida tropicalis. P. kudriavzevii was the most commonly species isolated (84.60%). Two genotypic strains were found for this species. The first one (Ia) gave three restriction bands with endonucleases Hae III and Xho I while the second one (Ib) gave two bands and one band respectively with the same enzymes. In addition, these strains showed four and two nucleotides divergence from a reference strains. The sequence data obtained from the PCR products were aligned and compared with other sequences. Homologous sequences of fungi were obtained from GenBank database.