Association between intraspecific variability and penicillin production in industrial strain, Penicillium chrysogenum revealed by RAPD and SRAP markers.

Penicillin represents antibiotic discovered for the first time that prevents bacterial infections. Production of penicillin using penicillin-producing fungi (Penicillium chrysogenum) mainly depends on activity of industrial strain, optimization of culture condition and purification efficiency. To contribute to management of penicillin-producing strains, we conducted phylogenetic study on 27 P. chrysogenum variants originated from industrial strain and selected on media supplemented with penicillin or phenylacetic acid (PAA) using 4 Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) primers and 2 Sequence-Related Amplified Polymorphic (SRAP) primer pairs. The UPGMA dendrogram distinguished 27 variants into 2 clusters at the genetic distance of 0.3, consistent with classification by penicillin titers of variants and supported by principal component analysis (PCA) and STRUCTURE analysis. These results suggest effectiveness of RAPD and SRAP markers in management of P. chrysogenum variants exhibiting different penicillin titers and may contribute to increase in penicillin production by enabling inoculation of confirmed industrial strain exhibiting high penicillin productivity at the beginning of culture.