RESUMO
India has a vast coastline of 7460 km and prolific presence of foraminifers which are significant paleoclimatic proxies. However, no research has been carried out to extract genomic DNA from foraminifer and sequencing it for DNA barcoding. To initiate molecular study on benthic foraminifers from the Gulf of Kachchh, India, we tested out various kits based protocols and extract the foraminiferal DNA from Ammonia sp. Though most of the earlier methods yielded moderate amount of mean genomic DNA yield (0.87-9.07 ng/µL) they failed to amplify the DNA. Possibly, this is the first attempt in India wherein standardization of foraminiferal DNA extraction and PCR amplification is performed. This standardized protocol (modified protocol) yielded the highest quantity of mean genomic DNA yield (28.41 ng/µL) and its PCR amplification was also successful.
RESUMO
Phosphorus (P) is abundant in soils in both inorganic and organic forms; nevertheless, it is unavailable to plants due to its fixation. Phosphate solubilising microorganisms including fungi play a pivotal role in making P available for plants by the process of solubilisation and mineralisation. Among the fungi that solubilize phosphate, the genera Aspergillus and Penicillium are the most representative although strains of Trichoderma and Rhizoctonia solani have also been reported as P solubilizers. Here, we report Neurospora discreta strain SR8 (NCCS Pune accession No. MCC1096 and NCBI accession No. KJ676544) as a P solubiliser as the first report. The strain was isolated from rhizospheric soil of Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench. grown in semi-arid climate of a unique ecological zone of Kachchh, western India. The organism was identified on the basis of morphological characterization and by sequencing of ITS region. The strain SR8 survived the stressed environment in terms of high salinity and low precipitation rate in this area and could be a potent P solubiliser in stressed environments.