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Sexual recombination as a tool for engineering industrial Penicillium chrysogenum strains

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Abstract

The recent discovery and functional characterization of opposite mating-type loci in the industrial penicillin producer Penicillium chrysogenum demonstrated their regulatory role in sexual as well as asexual development. Subsequent experiments further showed that a sexual life cycle can be induced in P. chrysogenum that was for long believed to reproduce exclusively by asexual propagation. Finally, crossing of wild type and production strains resulted in the generation of recombinant ascospore isolates. We predict from these recent findings that recombinant progeny for industrial applications can be obtained by sexual crossings and discuss experimental difficulties that occur when parental strains with karyotype heterogeneity are used for mating.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lehrstuhl für Allgemeine und Molekulare Botanik, Ruhr-University Bochum, 44780, Bochum, Germany

    Tim A. Dahlmann, Julia Böhm, Kordula Becker & Ulrich Kück

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  1. Tim A. Dahlmann
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  2. Julia Böhm
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  3. Kordula Becker
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  4. Ulrich Kück
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Correspondence to Ulrich Kück.

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Communicated by M. Kupiec.

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Dahlmann, T.A., Böhm, J., Becker, K. et al. Sexual recombination as a tool for engineering industrial Penicillium chrysogenum strains. Curr Genet 61, 679–683 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00294-015-0497-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00294-015-0497-7

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