Evaluation of primer pairs for studying arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal community compositions

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) belonging to the phylum Glomeromycota can form symbiotic associations with over 80% of terrestrial plant roots. Here, we analyzed AMF community compositions using several primer pairs and evaluated which pair can detect a more diverse AMF community. Three AMF-specific primer pairs targeting the 18S and 28S rRNA genes and a fungal universal primer pair targeting the ITS region were examined using soil DNA as the template. The effect of nested PCR was also evaluated.