Evaluation of genetic diversity of Chinese Pleurotus ostreatus cultivars using DNA sequencing technology

Pleurotus spp. are well-known and economically important cultivated mushrooms in China. Knowledge of the genetic relationship between the Chinese cultivars is essential to the improvement of P. ostreatus strains. Sequence analysis of the internal transcribed spacers (ITS), translation elongation factor (EF1α) and the second largest subunit of RNA polymerase II (RPB2) was performed to assess the genetic diversity of Pleurotus ostreatus strains cultivated in China. The phylogenetic tree constructed using the combined results of the ITS, EF1α and RPB2 sequence analyses showed the genetic relationships between the studied strains. Our phylogenetic analyses therefore provided valuable information on the relationships among the P. ostreatus strains used in this study and that was useful for examining genetic diversity among these strains.