The phylogenetic authentication of Ophiocordyceps sphecocephala from Lang Biang Biosphere Reserve, Lam Dong, Vietnam

Abstract

During our expedition at Lang Biang Biosphere Reserve, samples of DL0023, parasitizing on wasps, were collected, then sent to the biology laboratory, Dalat University, Lam Dong Province, Vietnam, to preliminarily morphologically identify the name of this species as Ophiocordyceps sphecocephala. The method of Phenol (pH = 8)/Chloroform method was applied to isolated DNA. The PCR assays and sequencing were performed to amplify and sequencing ITS, nrLSU, and nrSSU, respectively. The phylogenetic methods of neighbor-joining, maximum likelihood, and maximum parsimony were constructed to identify the relationship between DL0023 and referent sequences. We successfully amplified and sequenced the target genes, and constructed concatenated data containing 29, 33, and 30 sequences of ITS, nrLSU and nrSSU, respectively, belonging to Clavicipitaceae clade A, clade B and clade C, and 02 sequences belonged to Glomerellaceae. The results of phylogenetic analysis shown that DL0023 was accepted at Ophiocordyceps and strongly formed the monophyletic group Ophiocordyceps sphecocephala with a high supported value. In conclusion, the concatenated dataset’s phylogenetic analyses effectively supported the identification of DL0023 as Ophiocordyceps sphecocephala.