Molecular Characterization of Aspergillus niger Van Tieghem Isolates by Using Rapd Markers

Background: Aspergillus niger Van Tiegham is a filamentous, ubiquitous and cosmopolitan fungus, commonly known as “black mould” or black aspergilli. A. niger is responsible for causing diseases in plants, humans and animals. A. niger causes black mould disease during post-harvest stage of garlic bulbs. The potential of RAPD technique for identifying DNA marker related to the intraspecific diversification of the pathogen led us to instigate the genetic diversity within A. niger. Methods: A PCR-based technique, involving the random amplification of polymorphic DNA (RAPD), was used for assessing genomic variability among the ten isolates of A. niger isolated from infected garlic bulbs. RAPD- PCR conditions were optimized for eight primers of series OPA and POC out of 40 total primers. Result: RAPD results were evaluated by a statistical software Minitab and a phylogenetic tree was prepared. The primer OPA-8, OPA-12, OPC-1, OPC-2, OPA-7 and OPC-18 showed 100 per cent polymorphism, among the A. niger isolates.