Molecular identification of rust disease on Acacia mangium collected from West Java, Indonesia

Abstract

Abstract Acacia mangium is one of wood producing species widely planted in industrial and small scale forest. The only rust disease that has been reported on A. mangium is the phyllode rust caused by Endoraecium digitatum (syn. Atelocauda digitata). Some revision had been made for E. digitatum and some new species had been proposed on acacias. However, the information for Indonesian isolates is still limited. We found rust disease on A. mangium plantation in Tasikmalaya, West Java that had not been reported previously. Morphological identification is quite difficult to determine the species of those rust pathogen. Therefore, a molecular approach is needed. This study was aimed to identify the rust disease of A. mangium based on sequence data of internal transcribed spacer rDNA. The DNA samples of rust pathogen were isolated using CTAB methods followed with ITS amplification using specific rust primer and sequenced. BLAST analysis based on ITS fragments showed that rust pathogen has 98% identity to the E. auriuliforme. Meanwhile phylogenetic analysis showed that the rust pathogen on A. mangium was more closely related to the E. auriculiforme.