B-49 : Diversity of Endophytic Fungi Isolated from Leaves of Camellia japonica in Jeju, Korea

Endophytic fungi are non-pathogenic microorganisms, they can have positive effect upon the host plant such as promoting growth, increasing resistance against environmental stress. Camellia japonica is distributed over the southern areas in Korea, and a evergreen broad-leaved tree. But studies on the endophytic fungi of Camellia japonica are unusually performed. This study was conducted to identify diversity of endophytic fungi which lives symbiotically in leaves of Camellia japonicain Jeju, Korea. A total 70 fungal strains were isolated from surface-sterilized leaves of 12 host plants. They identified using morphological characteristics of the fungal hyphae and growth in culture. Genomic DNA was extracted from the isolated fungal strains and the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region was amplified using the ITS1-OF and ITS4-OF primer pair. The 17 genera and 23 species were identified, genera Nemania was discovered most frequently.