Diversity of culturable yeasts in phylloplane of sugarcane in Thailand and their capability to produce indole-3-acetic acid

Yeasts were isolated by the enrichment technique from the phylloplane of 94 samples of sugarcane leaf collected from seven provinces in Thailand. All sugarcane leaf samples contained yeasts and 158 yeast strains were obtained. On the basis of the D1/D2 domain of the large subunit rRNA gene sequence analysis, 144 strains were identified to 24 known species in 14 genera belonging to the Ascomycota viz. Candida akabanensis, Candida dendronema, Candida mesorugosa, Candida michaelii, Candida nivariensis, Candida rugosa, Candida orthopsilosis, Candida quercitrusa, Candida tropicalis, Candida xylopsoci, Cyberlindnera fabianii, Cyberlindnera rhodanensis, Debaryomyces nepalensis, Hannaella aff. coprosmaensis, Hanseniaspora guilliermondii, Kluyveromyces marxianus, Lachancea thermotolerans, Lodderomyces elongisporus, Metschnikowia koreensis, Meyerozyma caribbica, Millerozyma koratensis, Pichia kudriavzevii, Torulaspora delbrueckii and Wickerhamomyces edaphicus, and 12 species in six genera of the Basidiomycota viz . Cryptococcus flavescens, Cryptococcus laurentii, Cryptococcus rajasthanensis, Kwoniella heveanensis, Rhodosporidium fluviale, Rhodosporidium paludigenum, Rhodotorula mucilaginosa, Rhodotorula sesimbrana, Rhodotorula taiwanensis, Sporidiobolus ruineniae, Sporobolomyces carnicolor and Sporobolomyces nylandii. Seven strains were identical or similar to four undescribed species. Another seven strains represented four novels species in the genus Metschnikowia, Nakazawaea, Wickerhamomyces and Yamadazyma. The results revealed 69 % of the isolated strains were ascomycete yeasts and 31 % were basidiomycete yeast. The most prevalent species was M. caribbica with a 23 % frequency of occurrence followed by Rh. taiwanensis (11 %) and C. tropicalis (10 %). All strains were assessed for indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) producing capability showing that 69 strains had the capability of producing IAA when cultivated in yeast extract peptone dextrose broth supplemented with 1 g/L L-tryptophan. The highest IAA concentration of 565.1 mg/L was produced by R. fluviale DMKU-RK253.