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Published: Aug 5, 2018 DOI: 10.21769/BioProtoc.2961 Views: 4022
Abstract
Fusarium graminearum is a destructive phytopathogen that infects major cereal crops such as wheat, maize and barley. Double or triple mutants are often very useful in the phenotypic and genetic analysis of genes that function redundantly or within similar pathways. When single gene mutants are available, double or triple mutants can be generated by crossing heterothallic strains or multiple rounds of protoplast transformation. When individual mutants carry different antibiotic resistance, it is convenient to use the sexual crossing to generate desired recombinant strains. Here, we present a protocol for generating double or triple mutants by sexual crossing in one homothallic strain with further antibiotic resistance and genomic DNA PCR screening of recombinant progenies.
Keywords: Fusarium graminearumBackground
The ascomycete fungus Fusarium graminearum is a devastating phytopathogen that causes head blight, ear rot, stalk rot and crown in cereals. It can produce perithecia on carrot agar in vitro. This assay can be used for studying perithecia development, ascospore discharge and sexual recombination (Nicholson, 2007).
F. graminearum is homothallic and has both MAT1-1 and MAT1-2-1 locus; each of these locus deletion mutants is sterile in self-crosses (Zheng et al., 2013). To generate double gene mutants, one single gene mutant has traditionally been outcrossed with MAT deletion mutants and further outcrossed with another single mutant (Bowden and Leslie, 1999; Lee et al., 2011; Son et al., 2012). Another strategy of double or triple mutants construct is deleting a gene in the other mutant strain with protoplast transformation (Oide et al., 2007 and 2014).
Here, we adapt and simplify this method, and present the details of the protocol to generate double and triple mutants using sexual crosses in one homothallic strain with further antibiotic resistance screening.
Materials and Reagents
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Procedure
Category
Microbiology > Microbial genetics > Mutagenesis
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