SCREENING OF FUNGI ISOLATED FROM SPICES FOR MYCOVIRAL INFECTION

Abstract

Spices are the major component of our food and it has been found out that even though spices are known to be a cure for many diseases and exhibit antibacterial and antifungal activity, they may be contaminated with fungal strains during transport from fields to markets. Identification of these mycoflora has become very crucial to prevent the drastic effect of pathogenic fungi on both plants and animals. Even though, fungicides can be used to treat these pathogenic strains, yet, due to their harmful effects on environment and humans, hypovirulent mycoviruses has been used as an alternative to kill the fatal fungi. The study mainly focuses on screening of fungal strains isolated from spices for mycoviral infections. Sixty fungal isolates were identified using morphological analysis and ITS region amplification. The amplified regions of fungi were subjected to phylogenetic analysis using MAAFT. Thirteen mycoviruses were found: eight of them were quadripartite (Alternaviridae-like), four were bipartite (Megabirnaviridae like) and one fungal colony showed a co-infection with 61.5%, 30.77% and 7.69% frequencies respectively . Further studies regarding the impacts of these mycoviruses will not only open a new doorway of curing fatal diseases caused by fungi but it will also give a new direction to researchers to work on this aspect.