Abstract
Genome-wide mutagenesis is a powerful method for identifying new genes that contribute to a phenotype of interest. For many fungal pathogens of plants and animals, Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation (ATMT) serves as an efficient insertional mutagen. In Histoplasma capsulatum, the T-DNA element transferred by Agrobacterium stably integrates into the genome, and the majority of mutants contain single copies of the inserted sequence. The T-DNA sequence facilitates the determination of the genomic sequence flanking the insertion through hemi-specific PCR techniques, plasmid rescue, or inverse PCR. We present optimized procedures for generating insertional mutants in H. capsulatum using Agrobacterium-mediated transformation and using this for forward and reverse genetic approaches.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Lacroix B, Tzfira T, Vainstein A, et al (2006) A case of promiscuity: Agrobacterium’s endless hunt for new partners. Trends Genet 22:29–37
Lai EM, Kado CI (1998) Processed VirB2 is the major subunit of the promiscuous pilus of Agrobacterium tumefaciens. J Bacteriol 180:2711–2717
Gelvin SB (2003) Agrobacterium-mediated plant transformation: the biology behind the “gene-jockeying” tool. Microbiol Mol Biol Rev 67:16–37
Michielse CB, Hooykaas PJ, van den Hondel CA, et al (2005) Agrobacterium-mediated transformation as a tool for functional genomics in fungi. Curr Genet 48:1–17
Sullivan TD, Rooney PJ, Klein BS (2002) Agrobacterium tumefaciens integrates transfer DNA into single chromosomal sites of dimorphic fungi and yields homokaryotic progeny from multinucleate yeast. Eukaryot Cell 1:895–905
Bundock P, den Dulk-Ras A, Beijersbergen A, et al (1995) Trans-kingdom T-DNA transfer from Agrobacterium tumefaciens to Sacchar-omyces cerevisiae. EMBO J 14:3206–3214
de Groot MJ, Bundock P, Hooykaas PJ, et al (1998) Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation of filamentous fungi. Nat Biotechnol 16:839–842
Marion CL, Rappleye CA, Engle JT, et al (2006) An alpha-(1,4)-amylase is essential for alpha-(1,3)-glucan production and virulence in Histoplasma capsulatum. Mol Microbiol 62:970–983
Nguyen VQ, Sil A (2008) Temperature-induced switch to the pathogenic yeast form of Histoplasma capsulatum requires Ryp1, a conserved transcriptional regulator. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 105:4880–4885
Webster RH, Sil A (2008) Conserved factors Ryp2 and Ryp3 control cell morphology and infectious spore formation in the fungal pathogen Histoplasma capsulatum. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 105:14573–14578
Hilty J, Smulian AG, Newman SL (2008) The Histoplasma capsulatum vacuolar ATPase is required for iron homeostasis, intracellular replication in macrophages and virulence in a murine model of histoplasmosis. Mol Microbiol 70:127–139
Liu YG, Chen Y (2007) High-efficiency thermal asymmetric interlaced PCR for amplification of unknown flanking sequences. Biotechniques 43:649–654
Liu YG, Whittier RF (1995) Thermal asymmetric interlaced PCR: automatable amplification and sequencing of insert end fragments from P1 and YAC clones for chromosome walking. Genomics 25:674–681
Youseff BH, Dougherty JA, Rappleye CA (2009) Reverse genetics through random mutagenesis in Histoplasma capsulatum. BMC Microbiol 9:236
Jin S, Song YN, Deng WY, et al (1993) The regulatory VirA protein of Agrobacterium tumefaciens does not function at elevated temperatures. J Bacteriol 175:6830–6835
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Zemska, O., Rappleye, C.A. (2012). Agrobacterium-Mediated Insertional Mutagenesis in Histoplasma capsulatum . In: Brand, A., MacCallum, D. (eds) Host-Fungus Interactions. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 845. Humana, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-61779-539-8_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-61779-539-8_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana, Totowa, NJ
Print ISBN: 978-1-61779-538-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-61779-539-8
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols