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Thirty six strains of Pleurotus spp., from world-wide nations, were examined for interspecific isozyme variation. A comparison of isozymes in mycelial extracts of the fungal genus Pleurotus was made by polyacrylamide gel isoelectric focusing. A total of one hundred and sixty six bands was resolved from six isozymes. A cluster analysis was done based on the zymograms for esterase, glucosephosphate isomerase, leucine aminopeptidase, malate dehydrogenase, peroxidase, and phosphoglucomutase. From the isozyme analysis, esterase showed higher degree of variability, while it was observed less variability for the enzymes such as glucosephosphate isomerase, malate dehydrogenase, and phosphoglucomutase. The species P. ostreatus, whose taxon is controversial, was discriminated from P. pulmonarius, while P. florida was classified as a distinct taxon. The clustering of P. sapidus and P. spodoleucus strains appeared to be more difficult. It was found that some strains were included to another cluster based on electrophoretic banding patterns. These results show that this lack of congruence among data sets may help explain the taxonomic difficulty within the genus Pleurotus. A dendrogram of genetic similarities was presented, and applications of isozyme data to the systematics of these commercially important fungi was discussed.
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