Unexpected Nectriaceae species diversity in cheese, description of Bisifusarium allantoides sp. nov., Bisifusarium penicilloides sp. nov., Longinectria gen. nov. lagenoides sp. nov. and Longinectria verticilliforme sp. nov.

Investigation of various cheese rinds for Bisifusarium domesticum revealed a completely unexpected diversity of Fusarium-like fungi. Elongation factor 1-alpha gene sequence data, classically used for Fusarium spp. identification, suggested that some isolates corresponded to so far undescribed Nectriaceae species. In this context, a multi-gene phylogenetic analysis, based on ten loci, namely the large subunit of the ATP citrate lyase (acl1), alpha-actin (act), calmodulin (cmdA), histone H3 (his3), the internal transcribed spacer region and intervening 5.8S nrRNA (ITS), 28S large subunit (LSU), RNA polymerase II largest subunit (rpb1), RNA polymerase II second largest subunit (rpb2), translation elongation factor 1-alpha (tef1) and beta-tubulin (tub2), was therefore performed to determine the phylogenetic position of ten cheese and one environmental isolates. Phylogenetic reconstructions were then done using a Nectriaceae sequence dataset. Additionally, morphological observations as well as metabolite profiling were performed. Results clearly revealed the existence of four novel cheese-associated species, namely Bisifusarium allantoides, Bisifusarium penicilloides, Longinectria lagenoides, Longinectria verticilliforme, the two latter belonging to a novel genus (Longinectria gen. nov.).