Phylogenetic relationship of Trichoderma asperellum Tasp/8940 using Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) sequences

Biocontrol, or Biological Control, can be defined as the use of natural organisms, or genetically modified, genes or gene products, to reduce the effects of undesirable organisms to favour organisms useful to human, such as crops, trees, animals and beneficial microorganisms. This strategy of control is ecologicaly clean and compatible with different models of agriculture: organic, biological and integrated pest/pathogen management (IPM) programmes. Most isolates of the genus Trichoderma were found to act as mycoparasites of many economically important aerial and soil-borne plant pathogens. Trichoderma has gained importance as a substitute for chemical pesticides and hence an attempt was intended to corroborate the positive relatedness of molecular and morphological characters. A fungal strain of Trichoderma asperellum Tasp/8940 was isolated from a soil sample collected from CSA Farm, Kanpur district of Uttar Pradesh, India. The universal primers were used for amplification of 18S rRNA gene fragment and strain characterized by using 18S rRNA gene sequence with the help of ITS marker. It is proposed that the identified strain Trichoderma asperellum Tasp/8940 be assigned as the type strain of a species of the genus Trichoderma based on phylogenetic tree analysis together with the 18S rRNA gene sequence search in Ribosomal Database Project, small subunit rRNA and large subunit rRNA databases. The sequence was deposited in GenBank with the accession number KC800921. Thus an integrated approach of morphological and molecular markers can be employed to identify a superior strain of Trichoderma for its commercial exploitation.