Bioactive Endophytes Warrant Intensified Exploration and Conservation
Autor: | Lori Ann Boulanger, Emily Moore, David A. Kingery, Vivek Kembaiyan, Joshua S. Greene, David C. Tank, Jocelyn Keehner, Cong Ma, Percy V. Nunez, David Y. Light, Emily H. Lin, Michael J. Donoghue, Kaury Eisenman, Puyao Li, Kathleen Fenn, Carol A. Bascom-Slack, Sun Jin Lee, Michelle A. Schorn, Beatrice Babbs, Stephen A. Smith, Elizabeth G. Kelley-Swift, Daniel Vekhter, Gary A. Strobel, Scott A. Strobel, Bradley D. Hann |
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Rok vydání: | 2008 |
Předmět: |
Conservation of Natural Resources
Sequence analysis Evolutionary Biology/Bioinformatics Biodiversity lcsh:Medicine Bacterial Physiological Phenomena Endophyte Plant use of endophytic fungi in defense Evolution Molecular 03 medical and health sciences Phylogenetics Peru Botany Microbiology/Environmental Microbiology 14. Life underwater lcsh:Science Phylogeny 030304 developmental biology 0303 health sciences Multidisciplinary Evolutionary Biology/Evolutionary and Comparative Genetics Bacteria Phylogenetic tree biology 030306 microbiology lcsh:R Fungi Fungal genetics RNA Fungal Plants 15. Life on land biology.organism_classification RNA Bacterial Paraguay GenBank lcsh:Q Research Article |
Zdroj: | PLoS ONE, Vol 3, Iss 8, p e3052 (2008) PLoS ONE |
ISSN: | 1932-6203 |
Popis: | Background A key argument in favor of conserving biodiversity is that as yet undiscovered biodiversity will yield products of great use to humans. However, the link between undiscovered biodiversity and useful products is largely conjectural. Here we provide direct evidence from bioassays of endophytes isolated from tropical plants and bioinformatic analyses that novel biology will indeed yield novel chemistry of potential value. Methodology/Principal Findings We isolated and cultured 135 endophytic fungi and bacteria from plants collected in Peru. nrDNAs were compared to samples deposited in GenBank to ascertain the genetic novelty of cultured specimens. Ten endophytes were found to be as much as 15–30% different than any sequence in GenBank. Phylogenetic trees, using the most similar sequences in GenBank, were constructed for each endophyte to measure phylogenetic distance. Assays were also conducted on each cultured endophyte to record bioactivity, of which 65 were found to be bioactive. Conclusions/Significance The novelty of our contribution is that we have combined bioinformatic analyses that document the diversity found in environmental samples with culturing and bioassays. These results highlight the hidden hyperdiversity of endophytic fungi and the urgent need to explore and conserve hidden microbial diversity. This study also showcases how undergraduate students can obtain data of great scientific significance. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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