Abstract
We used restriction enzyme-mediated integration (REMI) to identify a methionine auxotrophic mutant of Gibberella zeae, an important cereal pathogen. In addition to its methionine requirement, the G. zeae REMI mutant designated Z43R3912 showed pleiotropic phenotypes, including reduced virulence on host plants and lack of sexual development. Outcrossing of Z43R3912 with a mat1-1 deletion strain confirmed that the mutation of Z43R3912 was tagged with the hygromycin B resistance marker. The vector insertion site in Z43R3912 was identified within the ORF designated GzmetE, encoding a putative homoserine O-acetyltrasferase (HOA). Gene disruption analyses confirmed that GzmetE was responsible for the pleiotropic phenotypes of Z43R3912. Genetic complementation of the G. zeae methionine auxotroph with an intact copy of the Aspergillus nidulans metE and GzmetE genes suggests that the HOA gene can be used as a selectable marker for transformation of G. zeae.
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Acknowledgements
This study was supported by a grant (CG 1413) from the Crop Functional Genomics Center of the 21st Century Frontier Research Program funded by the Korean Ministry of Science and Technology and by a grant (R01-2003-000-10208-0) from the Korean Science and Engineering Foundation. Y.K.H. and K.H.H. were supported by graduate and postdoctoral fellowships, respectively, from the Korean Ministry of Education through the Brain Korea 21 project.
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Han, YK., Lee, T., Han, KH. et al. Functional analysis of the homoserine O-acetyltransferase gene and its identification as a selectable marker in Gibberella zeae. Curr Genet 46, 205–212 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00294-004-0528-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00294-004-0528-2