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Cytological studies of Agaricus brasiliensis

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Abstract

Agaricus brasiliensis is a medicinal mushroom native to Brazil. It was first identified as Agaricus blazei and its scientific name continues to be debated. We examined the cytology of different Brazilian commercial strains of A. brasiliensis and the nuclear behavior of strain CS1 during basidiospore development using fluorescent microscopy. All strains have multinucleate hyphae and no significant differences in nuclei numbers were observed between them. Basidia from A. brasiliensis strain CS1 are typically tetrasporics and produce binucleate basidiospores, demonstrating that a postmeiotic mitosis occurs during basidiospore development. This result suggests that A. brasiliensis is primarily a heterothallic species.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the Brazilian agencies “Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa de Minas Gerais” (FAPEMIG) and “Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento científico e Tecnológico” (CNPq) for financial support and Alan Castle (Brock University, St. Catharines,ON Canada) for use of his laboratory.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Federal University of Lavras, CP 3037, Lavras, 37200-000, MG, Brazil

    Eustáquio Souza Dias, Cláudia Regina Gontijo Labory, Karina Marjorie Silva Herrera, Alexandre Alonso Alves & Giovana Augusta Torres

  2. Department of Plant Agriculture, University of Guelph, Vineland Campus, 4890 Victoria Avenue, P.O. Box 7000, L0R 2E0, Vineland Station, ON, Canada

    Danny Lee Rinker

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  1. Eustáquio Souza Dias
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  2. Cláudia Regina Gontijo Labory
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  3. Karina Marjorie Silva Herrera
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  4. Alexandre Alonso Alves
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  5. Giovana Augusta Torres
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  6. Danny Lee Rinker
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Correspondence to Eustáquio Souza Dias.

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Souza Dias, E., Labory, C.R.G., Herrera, K.M.S. et al. Cytological studies of Agaricus brasiliensis . World J Microbiol Biotechnol 24, 2473–2479 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11274-008-9769-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11274-008-9769-4

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