Development of a high throughput transformation system for insertional mutagenesis in Magnaporthe oryzae

Fungal Genet Biol. 2007 Oct;44(10):1035-49. doi: 10.1016/j.fgb.2007.05.001. Epub 2007 May 18.

Abstract

Towards the goal of disrupting all genes in the genome of Magnaporthe oryzae and identifying their function, a collection of >55,000 random insertion lines of M. oryzae strain 70-15 were generated. All strains were screened to identify genes involved in growth rate, conidiation, pigmentation, auxotrophy, and pathogenicity. Here, we provide a description of the high throughput transformation and analysis pipeline used to create our library. Transformed lines were generated either by CaCl(2)/PEG treatment of protoplasts with DNA or by Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation (ATMT). We describe the optimization of both approaches and compare their efficiency. ATMT was found to be a more reproducible method, resulting in predominantly single copy insertions, and its efficiency was high with up to 0.3% of conidia being transformed. The phenotypic data is accessible via a public database called MGOS and all strains are publicly available. This represents the most comprehensive insertional mutagenesis analysis of a fungal pathogen.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • 3' Flanking Region
  • 5' Flanking Region
  • Agrobacterium tumefaciens / genetics
  • Magnaporthe / genetics*
  • Mutagenesis, Insertional / methods*
  • Phenotype
  • Protoplasts
  • Transformation, Genetic