Secondary Structure and Phylogenetic Implications of ITS2 in the Genus Tricholoma

The internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region in the genus Tricholoma was analyzed, including for its primary nucleotide sequence and secondary structural characterization. The secondary structures of the ITS2 region in the genus Tricholoma were identified for use in bioinformatic processes to study molecular evolution and compare secondary structures. Ten newly sequenced ITS regions were added to the analysis and submitted to the GenBank database. The resulting structure from a minimum energy algorithm indicated the four-domain model, as previously suggested by others. The conserved secondary structure of the ITS2 sequences of the genus Tricholoma exhibited certain unique features, including pyrimidine tracts in the loops of domain A and a complete structure containing four domains, with motifs identified in other ITS2 secondary structures. A phylogenetic tree was derived from sequence alignment based on the secondary structures. From the resulting maximum parsimonious tree, it was found that the species in the genus Tricholoma had evolved monophyletically and were composed of four groups, as supported by the bootstrapping values and pileus color.