Detection and identification of decay fungi in spruce wood by restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of amplified genes encoding rRNA

Researchers were able to detect brown-rot and white-rot basidiomycetes in wood using the primer pair ITS1-F AND ITS4 to amplify fungal DNA using the polymerase chain reaction. The fungi could be detected before there was measurable loss of wood. Restriction fragment length polymorphisms of the internal transcribed spacer region were used to identify the fungi down to the species level.