Molecular Characterization of Colletotrichum gloeosporioides (Glomerella cingulata) Causing Mango Anthracnose Disease

Abstract

Mango production in Tamil Nadu is known to be adversely affected by C. gloeosporioides in both field and post harvest stage of crop and drastically reduces market and edible value of fruit. To manage the disease it is essential to learn about the nature of pathogen and its way of interaction with host and its survival ability in environment. Hence a study has been carried out on Isolation of fungal pathogen was done using PDA medium in order to identify the disease's causative agent and its variation in morphology and colony characters. A total of twenty-four C. gloeosporioides isolates were obtained from various Tamil Nadu mango cultiavting areas of Tamil Nadu. The isolates were identified morphologically and molecularly. The microscopic features such as conidia shape and size were used to identify C. gloeosporioides. The CTAB technique was employed to extract the DNA from the isolates of C. gloeosporioides. A total of 24 isolates were subjected to ITS (Inter Transcribed Spacer) of 18s ribosomal RNA amplification; all of these isolates exhibited amplified products with a size range of 560 bp, indicating that they were fungal pathogen. The MkCgF and MkCgR PCR primer combination was unique to the ITS region of C. gloeosporioides species. It has been confirmed that all 24 of the C. gloeosporioides isolates are really C. gloeosporioides by amplifying the predicted size of 380 bp.