VARIATION OF ISOZYME PATTERNS IN THE NATURAL-POPULATION OF LENTINUS EDODES

Electrophoretic patterns of nine enzymes from the mycelia of 93 wild strains of Lentinus edodes were analyzed to study the genetic variability in the natural population of the fungus. Seventy-one specimens came from Japan, ten from China, seven from Papua-New Guinea, and five from New Zealand. When the banding patterns of nine enzymes were compared among all strains, each strain showed its own distinct enzymatic type, except that two strains had the same type. A dendrogram based on the similarity coefficients calculated between strains was constructed by the group average method. All the Japanese strains constituted a single cluster together with all those of China. Two strain groups, those of Papua-New Guinea and New Zealand, were distinguishable from the cluster of Japan and China. These results suggest that geographical distance reduces the genetic similarity in the natural population of L. edodes.