Molecular characterization and genetic diversity of four undescribed novel oleaginous Mortierella alpina strains from Libya

Fuzia Elfituri Muftah Eltariki; Kartikeya Tiwari; Mohammed Abdelfatah Alhoot

doi:10.12688/f1000research.70644.1

Molecular characterization and genetic diversity of four undescribed novel oleaginous Mortierella alpina strains from Libya

F1000Res. 2021 Sep 7:10:895. doi: 10.12688/f1000research.70644.1. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Fuzia Elfituri Muftah Eltariki¹, Kartikeya Tiwari¹, Mohammed Abdelfatah Alhoot¹

Affiliation

¹ Microbiology and Post Graduation Center, Management and Science University, Shah Alam, Selangor, 40100, Malaysia.

Abstract

Background: A large number of undiscovered fungal species still exist on earth, which can be useful for bioprospecting, particularly for single cell oil (SCO) production. Mortierella is one of the significant genera in this field and contains about hundred species. Moreover, M. alpina is the main single cell oil producer at commercial scale under this genus. Methods: Soil samples from four unique locations of North-East Libya were collected for the isolation of oleaginous Mortierellaalpina strains by a serial dilution method. Morphological identification was carried out using light microscopy (Olympus, Japan) and genetic diversity of the isolated Mortierella alpina strains was assessed using conserved internal transcribed spacer (ITS) gene sequences available on the NCBI GenBank database for the confirmation of novelty. The nucleotide sequences reported in this study have been deposited at GenBank (accession no. MZ298831:MZ298835). The MultAlin program was used to align the sequences of closely related strains. The DNA sequences were analyzed for phylogenetic relationships by molecular evolutionary genetic analysis using MEGA X software consisting of Clustal_X v.2.1 for multiple sequence alignment. The neighbour-joining tree was constructed using the Kimura 2-parameter substitution model. Results: The present research study confirms four oleaginous fungal isolates from Libyan soil. These isolates (barcoded as MSU-101, MSU-201, MSU-401 and MSU-501) were discovered and reported for the first time from diverse soil samples of district Aljabal Al-Akhdar in North-East Libya and fall in the class: Zygomycetes; order: Mortierellales. Conclusions: Four oleaginous fungal isolates barcoded as MSU-101, MSU-201, MSU-401 and MSU-501 were identified and confirmed by morphological and molecular analysis. These fungal isolates showed highest similarity with Mortierella alpina species and can be potentialistic single cell oil producers. Thus, the present research study provides insight to the unseen fungal diversity and contributes to more comprehensive Mortierella alpina reference collections worldwide.

Keywords: Mortierella alpina; Mortierellales; Potato dextrose agar; Single cell oil; Sporangiospore.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Genetic Variation
Libya
Mortierella* / genetics
Phylogeny

Supplementary concepts

Mortierella alpina

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Management and Science University (MSU) under grant numbers: SG-376-0216-IMS and SG-036-012019-IMS (Reference: RMC01/01/14092020/1). Funds from grant number SG-036-012019-IMS (Reference: RMC01/01/14092020/1) were used for genetic characterization and assessment of genetic diversity of Mortierella alpina strains whereas, the funds from grant number SG-376-0216-IMS were used for isolation, identification and purchase of reagents for morphological identification of these strains. Since these both are seed grants thus, have limited funds and the funders had no role in study design, data collection, analysis, decision to publish and preparation of the manuscript.