Title: Genotypic diversity among Egyptian isolates of Sporisorium scitamineum as revealed by comparative sequence analysis of the internal transcribed spacer and b-east matting type gene

Biography:

Ayman Esh is a Professor and head of plant pathology Dept., at the Sugar Crops Research Institute (SCRI), ARC, Egypt. He also serves as the supervisor of biotechnology and molecular biology laboratories. He also served as the deputy of scientific and research affairs in SCRI and the technical and administrative director of  SCRI biotechnology and tissue culture laboratories and greenhouses.  Dr. Esh shaped by his first PhD work in sugar beet diseases from Zagazig University and a second PhD in molecular biology and genetic engineering from Sadat City University. He has been involved in many different domestic and international collaborative research projects as a post doctor or a co-PI. He also awarded many international postdoctoral fellowships (USA) and international training programs (USA, France, Italy, Morocco....) in the fields of molecular plant pathology, molecular biology, bioinformatics, tissue culture, ....). Dr. Esh was a co-authored three international books on special topics concerning sugar beet and sugar cane diseases as well as his last chapter on molecular Markers and Phytopatholgy.

Abstract

A total of 20 Sporisorium scitamineum samples were collected from sugarcane growing areas in Upper Egypt. The genotypic diversity between the twenty S. scitamineum isolates based on ITS1-ITS4 region sequence and b-East matting type sequence were performed. Alignment of the ITS1, 5.8S  and ITS2 regions of the rDNA of 20 isolates of S. scitamineum depicting 100% similarities between all the tested isolates except isolate (ADA-1) which has one base difference in the ITS2 region. The obtained two sequences of isolates ADA-1 and HAQ-2 was registered at National Center for Biotechnology Information NCBI Gene bank under the accession numbers JQ912111 and JQ912112 respectively.  The combined 18S, ITS1, 5.8S and ITS2 data sets between Egyptian and foreign S. scitamineum sequences obtained from NCBI, grouped the sequences into two  groups, the first contained S. scitamineum from Hawaii and the second contained South Africa,  India, Egypt, Reunion and China isolates in different levels. The Egyptian S. scitamineum isolate ADA-1 showed a close distance to Reunion isolate while the second Egyptian isolate HAQ-2 was much closer to China isolate. Sequencing data of b-East mating-type gene showed that, all the sequences found identical to S. scitamineum  b-East mating-type gene sequence published in NCBI. The b-East gene sequence of isolates ADA-1 was submitted in NCBI under the accession number JQ290342. The multiple sequence alignment of the Egyptian isolates and the published reference sequences of b-East gene from the USA and China of the same organism in the NCBI showed, a single nucleotide polymorphism at the nucleotide number 270 between Egyptian and Chinese  isolates