Application of a Method Incorporating Treatment with Daunomycin for the Selective Isolation of Slower-Growing Fungi

Abstract

Expanding the diversity of fungi can lead to the discovery of secondary metabolites that can be applied in the pharmaceutical field. For this purpose, a new simple method using an anthracycline antibiotic, daunomycin (DM), as a selection reagent in isolating slower-growing fungi was established. DM treatment significantly prevented the growth of ordinary faster-growing fungi, thereby fascilitating the selective isolation of slower-growing fungi. In addition, the possibility of isolating rare fungus genera was increased when the DM method was employed. Furthermore, the number of genera obtained by the DM method (56) was larger than that by the Rose Bengal (RB) method (38), and the genera isolated by these methods showed some overlap (20 genera).

• slower-growing fungi
• daunorubicin
• Rose Bengal
• selective isolation