title: Production of lepidimoide by an endophytic fungus from polysaccharide extracted from Abelmoschus sp.: identification of the product and the organism producing it.
abstract: A highly potent allelopathic factor, lepidimoide, was initially extracted from mucilage of germinated cress seeds. Polysaccharide extracted from okra (Abelmoschus esculentum Moench) is considered to have a similar structure to lepidimoide as its repeating unit. We therefore initiated the screening of enzymes capable of degrading okra polysaccharide into lepidimoide from endophytes. We discovered an endophytic fungal strain AHU9748 isolated from Coleus galeatus, which produced an oligosaccharide having similar properties to lepidimoide on thin layer chromatography. The physico-chemical data from ESI-MS, NMR spectra and other analyses also showed the purified product to be identical to lepidimoide. The strain AHU9748 was identified as a fungus belonging to the coelomycetes, closely related to the genus Colletotrichum, based on morphological characteristics and sequence analysis of the 18S rDNA and ITS region.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Applied Microbiology, Graduate School of Agriculture, Hokkaido University, N9 W9, Kita-ku, Sapporo 060-8589, Japan.
authors.forename: Michiko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tanaka
authors.forename: Makoto
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yoshimura
authors.forename: Manabu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Suto
authors.forename: Atsushi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Yokota
authors.forename: Kozo
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Asano
authors.forename: Endang
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Sukara
authors.forename: Fusao
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Tomita