Phylogeny of Korean Isolates of Phytophthora Species Based on Sequence Analysis of Internal Transcribed Spacer of Ribosomal DNA

The internal transcribed spacer regions (ITS I, 5.8S and ITS II) of the ribosomal DNAs were amplified from Korean isolates of Phytophthora spp. and sequenced to characterize them. Sequences from 33 isolates previously identified as P. boehmeriae, P. cactprum, P. cambivora, P. capsici, P. cinnamomi, P. erythroseptica, P. infestans, P. megasperma, P. melonis, P. nicotianae, P. palmivora and P. sojae were compared with published sequences, and a phylogenetic tree was produced. All isolates belonging to 10 species, P. cactorum, P. cambivora, P. capsici, P. cinnamomi P. citricola, P. infestans, P. nicotianae, P. palmivora and P. sojae were clearly clustered into published isolates of each species above 97% bootstrap value. Cucurbits isolates of Phytophthora previously identified as either P. melonis or P. drechsleri showed distinct evolutionary lineages from the P. megasperma was closely related to isolates of P. cryptogea-P. drechsleri showed distinct evolutionary lineages from the P. cryptogea-P. drechsleri complex group, indicating that P. melonis is a valid species. A Korean isolate of P. megasperma was closely related to isolates of P. erythroseptica showed distant genetic relationship with published isolates of P. erythroseptica (CBS 956.87). It is probable that the two Korean isolates could be genetically different from foreign isolates or misidentified. A grouping of species according to ITS sequence divergence matched, to some degree, the broad classification based on type of papilla. However, a separation of semi-papillate species and papillate species was not wvident in this study.