Isolation, identification, and study of the genetic diversity between three entomopathogenic nematodes belonging to Heterorhabditis sp. using ISSR technique

Abstract Background Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) are widely used in biological control for soil-dwelling stages of many insect pests that are characterized by their safety to most non-target organisms and to the environment. Results The objectives of the present study were isolation of EPNs from agricultural soil in Egypt for further use in biological control programs and study the genetic variation among them using the molecular marker inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSR). Three out of 25 soil samples collected from fields cultivated with strawberry, tangerine, and pumpkin were positive for the presence of EPNs, using the Galleria baiting technique. Sequencing of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region indicated that the isolates obtained belong to Heterorhabditis sp. The ITS sequences were submitted to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and registered under accession nos. MH553165, MH553168, and MH553169. Six ISSR primers were used. The numbers of polymorphic bands were 42 out of 56, and the polymorphism percentage was 75%. The highest number of bands was 12 bands generated by primer ISSR8 followed by UBC-809 (11 bands) while recorded the lowest band number (4 bands), the percentage of polymorphism ranged from 40% (ISSR1) to 100% (ISSR6). Conclusion ISSR marker can be considered a good marker to study genetic diversity and detecting the genetic polymorphism among the nematodes species.