Is the endophytic fungus Neofusicoccum kwambonambiense another brick in the wall of the post-harvest pathogenic fruit fungi system?

Entophytic fungi are characterized as microorganisms that colonize plant tissues without causing infection symptoms. These organisms are sources of genetic and biochemical diversity for numerous applications, from the production of pharmaceutical compounds to foods. However, many of these fungi can become pathogenic to plants if they find suitable substrate for their infection and development. Neofusicoccum spp. has been considered a phytopathogenic fungus for many agricultural crops, being aggressive for some of them both in their woody parts or fruits, either while still in the orchards or after being harvested. The identification and pathogenicity of the isolates are two important aspects for their characterization. Thus, the objective of this work was to characterize the pathogenicity of two endophytic isolates of the fungus Neofusicoccum sp. in different fruits in the post-harvest process. Therefore, isolates identity confirmation was obtained using Bayesian reconstruction of the internal transcribed spacer region (ITS) and translation elongation factor 1-alpha (TEF 1-α). Subsequently, the isolates were inoculated in zucchini, banana, persimmon, green beans, guava, orange, apple, melon, papaya and tomato, followed by a 10-day evaluation in order to calculate the areas under the disease progress curve. Phylogenetic reconstruction allowed identification of two isolates of the endophytic fungus of Brazilian cherry leaves as Neofusicoccum kwambonambiense, which were confirmed as pathogenic for the following fruits: Brazilian cherry, papaya, tomato, banana and apple, with variations in aggressiveness. However, no infections were found in zucchini, melon and guava by any of the isolates. This is believed to be the first occurrence of N. kwambonambiense isolated from plants of Eugenia uniflora, with pathogenicity in different post-harvest fruits.