Identification of Tuber mycorrhizae using multilocus electrophoresis

This paper reports multilocus electrophoresis for identification of Tuber ectomycorrhizae. The commercial value of some species (e.g., T magnatum, T melanosporum and T aestivum) makes their identification particularly important at the ectomycorrhizal stage, for inoculating practices as well as to track the environmental fate of the inoculated species. The electrophoretic ectomycorrhizal patterns at 4 enzymatic loci, obtained by modifying methods of enzymatic extraction as well as some staining procedures, allowed the identification of wild and nursery-inoculated ectomycorrhizal samples of Tuber spp. The results obtained indicate that the electrophoretic analysis of gene-enzyme systems is a reliable alternative method to the conventional morphometric criteria of fungal identification. At the same time, it is an useful tool for a rapid and simple identification of truffles during the ectomycorrhizal stage for large scale controlled production.