Intersterility group differentiation in Heterobasidion annosum using ribosomal IGS1 region polymorphism

The intergenic spacer region 1 (IGS1) of the nuclear ribosomal RNA gene repeat was examined in three European intersterility groups of the wood-rot fungus Heterobasidion annosum. The IGS1 elements were informative for restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) fingerprinting the fungal intersterility groups following digestion with two different four-cutter restriction endonucleases. The fingerprints of isolates from the same intersterility group from different localities shared some fragments in common, but also showed specific fragments suggesting that RFLP of the IGS1 region might be used in population studies. RFLP patterns between isolates from different intersterility groups differed more markedly. RFLP were also detected in the IGS1 region of North American strains of H. annosum and in the related species Heterobasidion araucariae. The results indicate that ribosomal IGS1 region fingerprinting could be a useful tool to identify the fungal intersterility group in Heterobasidion annosum.