Isozyme differentiation among three pathotypes of the entomogenous fungus Nomuraea rileyi

The zymogram technique has been applied to three pathotypes of the entomopathogenic fungus Nomuraea rileyi. Isozyme profiles of isolates from Heliothis zea, Pseudoplusia includens, and Anticarsia gemmatalis were compared for 17 enzymes of known metabolic function. Electrophoretic data supported the taxonomic differences inferred for the three pathotypes based on host specificity. The isolate from A. gemmatalis was found consistently to be the most distinct.This study demonstrates that isozyme analysis may be used to distinguish closely related fungal isolates of N. rileyi.