FTIR Spectroscopy for Identification and Intra-Species Characterization of Serpula lacrymans

Rony Barboux,Faisl Bousta,Patrick Di Martino

doi:10.3390/app11188463

Abstract

The dry rot fungus Serpula lacrymans is the most destructive fungal agent of wood building materials in Europe, Russia, North America, and Japan. The identification of this wood-deteriorating agent and the discrimination of different fungal isolates is very important for the control of buildings in general and for the preservation of cultural heritage in particular. The objective of the study was to develop a Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) method coupled with a partial least square discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) for the sample preparation and identification of S. lacrymans. Five distinct S. lacrymans strains were analysed and compared to two strains of unrelated fungal species. Different methods of mycelial growth, sample preparation, and FTIR spectral data normalisation were compared. FTIR analysis of a harvested mycelium grown on the surface of a polyether sulfone microfiltration membrane deposited on a malt extract agar medium, followed by vector normalization and PLS-DA statistical analysis, resulted in 100% correct attribution at phylum, species, and strain level, regardless of the type of standardization used. This study confirms the applicability of FTIR spectroscopy for the identification of S. lacrymans and the discrimination of different strains belonging to this species.

Highlights

Serpula lacrymans is a Basidiomycota of the order Boletales, which is the main agent of brown rot in buildings and historical monuments in Europe, Russia, North America, and Japan [1,2,3,4,5]
The goal of this study was to standardize, optimize, and show that Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy is a suitable method for the identification and discrimination of different strains of S. lacrymans
The mycelial biomass obtained after growth and collection under different conditions was analysed by Attenuated total reflectance (ATR)-FTIR

Summary

Introduction

Serpula lacrymans is a Basidiomycota of the order Boletales, which is the main agent of brown rot in buildings and historical monuments in Europe, Russia, North America, and Japan [1,2,3,4,5]. The universal primer pair, ITS1 and ITS4, is used generically for fungal identification; the primer pair, ITS1-F and ITS4-B, can be used to highlight Basidiomycota, and the S. lacrymans-specific SL primer can be combined with ITS1 to detect this species [11,12,13]. The advantage of this method is that it allows the identification of a fungus regardless of its developmental stage [14]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion