Fungal Endophytes in Roots of Aralia Species and Their Antifungal Activity

, endophytic fungi, ITS sequence.Endophytes are microorganisms that form symptomlessinfections within healthy plant tissues (Carroll, 1986;Carroll, 1988). Endophytic micr oorganism have been foundin nearly all plant families (Sieber et al., 1988), whichrepresent many species in different climate regions of theworld (Bussaben et al., 2001; Fisher et al., 1992; Larran etal., 2000, 2001, 2002; Luginbuhl and Muller, 1980;McInroy and Kloepper, 1991; Pereira et al., 1999; Petrini andCarroll, 1981; Spurr and Welty, 1975). Dryfuss and Chapela(1994) estimated that there may be at least 1 million speciesof endophytic fungi alone. It seems obvious that endo-phytes are a rich and reliable source of genetic diversity andnovel, undescribed species. Novel microbes usually haveassociated with their novel natural products. This fact alonehelps to eliminate the problems of dereliction in compounddiscovery (Strobel and Daisy, 2003).The presence of endophytes within plant tissues mayconfer certain advantages to the host plant (Carroll, 1991).Endophytic fungi are of biotechnological interest due totheir potential use as genetic vectors (Murray et al., 1992),as a source of secondary metabolites (Fisher et al., 1986;Stierle et al., 1993; Strobel et al., 1996) and a biologicalcontrol agents (Bacon, 1990; Clay, 1989; Dorworth andCallan, 1996; Schardl et al., 1991). Carroll (1988) hasdemonstrated the enhancing of the host survival againstfungal pathogens in plant-endophyte associations.