Characterization Of FgAC1 Gene Of Fusarium Graminearum

Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) disease is caused mainly by Fusarium graminearum. This pathogen causes the loss of production not only wheat, but also barley, corn, sorghum and any other kinds of cereal plants, thus causes serious economic loss. Moreover, the mycotoxins produced by this fungus endanger animal and human's health seriously. In recent years, a great deal of studies about Fusarium graminearum were carried out and a series of significant progress were get. Nowadays, the functional genomics research about Fusarium graminearum has been gradually developed and has been focused on the molecular mechanism of pathogenesis and the discovery of targets for germicide to treat.In this study, FgACl gene was knocked out on the principle of homologous recombination and its function was analyzed. The knockout cassette was constructed by the Split-marker strategy and was transformed into the protoplast of wild-type PH-1 strain. To obtain the knock-out mutant, the transformants selected by hygromycin were screened by PCR and then confirmed by Southern blot analysis. Ultimately, the deletion mutants were single-spored for observing the phenotype of FgAC1 disrupted mutant.The phenotype determination was carried out by morphology observation for colony and spores, assays of growth rate, sporulation, sexual reproduction and infection on corn-silk and fruit of tomato. We discovered that Afgacl mutant colonies were darker pink, obviously darker than the color of wild-type and lacking of FgACl gene lead to reduction of growth rate but does not affect the production of conidia and ascospore. However, the size of conidia was increased and no apparent increase for the its number. Through the experiment of infection assays on corn-silk and fruit of tomato, we found that the virulence ofΔfgacl mutant is remarkably weakened remarkably.The study preliminary investigated the structure and function of FgACl and provided a theoretical foundation for further studies on the molecular basis of Fusarium graminearum pathogenesis.