VNTR derived oligonucleotides as PCR primers for population studies in filamentous fungi

One M13 phage derived and three simple sequence repeat primers were assessed for the development of a standard set of PCR primers for population studies with filamentous fungi. Fungal isolates from five plant or insect pathogenic genera with ascomycete and basidiomycete affinities were screened. Three of the four primers were found to be suitable for generating ‘genetic fingerprints’ for all of the fungal genera tested. Strain groupings obtained from the individual primers were found to be supportive through constrained two-dimensional cluster analysis.