COMPARATIVE MOLECULAR PHYLOGENY OF GANODERMA LUCIDUM FROM NIGERIA, CHINA, KOREA, AND JAPAN: INSIGHTS FOR DRUG DISCOVERY

Abstract

Ganoderma lucidum, a medicinal mushroom valued for its diverse pharmacological properties, has been extensively studied in Asia, but remains underexplored in Africa. Given the influence of geographic variation on fungal evolution and metabolite production, understanding the phylogenetic relationships between Nigerian and Asian isolates is essential for both taxonomy and drug discovery. This study aimed to examine the evolutionary relationships between Nigerian and Asian G. lucidum isolates using molecular data. A total of 27 ITS gene sequences (seven each from Nigeria, China, and Korea, and six from Japan) were retrieved from NCBI GenBank, aligned with MUSCLE in Geneious 9.1, trimmed to uniform length, and analyzed for nucleotide composition, pairwise identity, and sequence differences; a Neighbor-Joining phylogenetic tree was then constructed using the Tamura–Nei model with 100 bootstrap replicates. The alignment yielded an average ungapped length of ~552 bp with 44.7% conserved sites and 92.8% overall pairwise identity; most Asian isolates clustered tightly (>99% identity, differing by only 1–5 nucleotides), whereas the Nigerian isolate MZ014900 was highly divergent (~250–310 nucleotide differences, 53–57% identity) and formed a distinct long branch, while other Nigerian isolates showed intermediate clustering with Asian strains. These findings reveal both conserved and divergent lineages, highlighting Nigerian isolates as potential reservoirs of conserved traits and novel bioactive compounds, though additional markers and chemical profiling are required to validate their evolutionary and pharmacological distinctiveness.