Reclassification of Japanese isolates of Verticillium lecanii to Lecanicillium spp.

Recently, Verticillium lecanii was transferred and subdivided into mainly Lecanicillium lecanu, L. muscarium, and L. longisporum according to morphological observations and PCR-RFLPs of ITS, mtDNA and beta-tubulin. To clarify whether 65 isolates of V lecanii of mainly Japanese isolates were identified as Lecanicillium spp., conidia size and the formation of secondary phialide formation were investigated under a light microscope, and DNA polymorphism in the beta-tubulin gene of V lecanii was analyzed by PCR-RFLP. These results indicated that the examined isolates belonged to L. muscarium (60 isolates) and L. longisporum (4 isolates), except for one isolate which alone did not belong to both Lecanicillium spp.