Genus Phellinus taxonomically belongs to Aphyllophorales and some species of this genus have been used as a medicinal ingredients and Indian folk medicines. Especially, P. linteus and morphological-related species are well-known medicinal fungi that have various biological activities such as humoral and cell-mediated, anti-mutagenic, and anti-cancer activities. However, little is known about the rapid detection for complex Phellinus species. Therefore, this study was carried out to develop specific primers for the rapid detection of P. linteus and other related species. Designing the species-specific primers was done based on internal transcribed spacer sequence data. Each primer set detected specifically P. linteus (PL2/PL5R) and P. baumii (PB1/PB4R). These primer sets could be useful for the rapid detection of specific-species among unidentified Phellinus species. Moreover, restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of the ITS region with HaeIII was also useful for clarifying the relationship between each 5 Phellinus species.
Keywords: ITS region; Phellinus; Phylogeny; RFLP; Species-specific PCR primer.