Molecular characterization of shiitake medicinal mushroom, Lentinus edodes strains (higher Basidiomycetes) using RAPD and ITS sequencing.

The molecular phylogeny in seven strains of Lentinus edodes was studied based on RAPD and their internal transcribed spacers (ITS) regions. The strains were analyzed by RAPD with 20 arbitrary primers. Fifteen primers were found efficient for the amplification of the genomic DNA. The size of the polymorphic bands were in the range of 100-1000 bp. However, the size of ITS1-2 and ITS1-4 regions varied among the strains from 278 to 575 bp and from 410 to 616 bp, respectively. The higher alignment score of the ITS 1-2 region indicated more variability in the ITS 1-4 region. Thus, on the basis of RAPD-PCR and ITS sequencing it was found that strains LeC and LeI showed a high degree of divergence from all other strains.