FIRST REPORT OF ASPERGILLUS JAPONICUS CAUSING BROWN SPOT ON LIRIOPE PLATYPHYLLA IN CHINA

Abstract

Liriope platyphylla (LP; family Liliaceae) is a herbaceous perennial usually grown as low-growing landscape plant, the tubers of which are used as expectorants, antitussives and tonics in traditional Chinese medicine (Hur et al., 2004). In June 2013, yellow and brown spots were observed on LP leaves in several gardens in Pan’an (Zhejiang Province, China). Symptomatic tissues were cut into small pieces, plated on potato dextrose agar (PDA), and incubated at 25°C in the dark. New white mycelia were developed from the margins of diseased tissues after 4 days, and a pure strain F13T-2 was obtained at last. Colonies grew up to about 46.0 mm in diameter after 132 h. At the same time, the surface of mycelia was covered by a large number of conidia, which made the colony purplish-dark. The ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region was amplified with ITS1 and ITS4 primers and sequenced. Sequence analysis showed that the ITS sequence of F13T-2 (GenBank Accession No. KF672363) was 99% identical to the ITS sequence of Aspergillus japonicus strain VIT-SB1 (KC128815). Pathogenicity test showed that the fungus present on the inoculated LP leaves was morphologically identical to that originally observed on diseased plants, which fulfilled Koch's postulates. A. japonicus had been reported as synthetic materials and potentially adequate for industrial production of fructooligosaccharides (Mussatto et al., 2009). To our knowledge, this is the first report of brown spot caused by A. japonicus on LP in China.