Bacterial-type endochitinases as phylogenetic markers forfungal entomopathogens and mycoparasites

Abstract: Two types of endochitinases referred to as bacterial or B-type and fungal or F-type areknown to operate in fungi. While F-type chitinases are generally believed to have morphogeneticfunctions, B-type chitinases are often associated with pathogenesis in fungal entomopathogensand mycoparasites. Comparative genomics has previously identified at least four fungal B-typechitinase subfamilies termed chiB1 through chiB4. Here we explore the suitability of the chiB1gene as a phylogenetic marker for the classification of a particular subgroup of filamentous fungi,i.e. entomopathogenic and mycoparasitic hyphomycetes, and apply this marker to theclassification to a set of fungal isolates from Uzbekistan.