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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, October 2006, p. 6527-6532, Vol. 72, No. 10
0099-2240/06/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.01543-06
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

The Homologue of het-c of Neurospora crassa Lacks Vegetative Compatibility Function in Fusarium proliferatum{dagger}

Zoltán Kerényi,1 Brigitta Oláh,1,2 Apor Jeney,1 László Hornok,1,2 and John F. Leslie3*

Agricultural Biotechnology Center, Szent-Györgyi A. u. 4., H-2100 Gödöllo, Hungary,1 Department of Agricultural Biotechnology and Microbiology, Mycology Group, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Szent István University, Páter K. u. 1., H-2103 Gödöllo, Hungary,2 Department of Plant Pathology, Throckmorton Plant Sciences Center, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506-55023

Received 4 July 2006/ Accepted 2 August 2006

For two fungal strains to be vegetatively compatible and capable of forming a stable vegetative heterokaryon they must carry matching alleles at a series of loci variously termed het or vic genes. Cloned het/vic genes from Neurospora crassa and Podospora anserina have no obvious functional similarity and have various cellular functions. Our objective was to identify the homologue of the Neurospora het-c gene in Fusarium proliferatum and to determine if this gene has a vegetative compatibility function in this economically important and widely dispersed fungal pathogen. In F. proliferatum and five other closely related Fusarium species we found a few differences in the DNA sequence, but the changes were silent and did not alter the amino acid sequence of the resulting protein. Deleting the gene altered sexual fertility as the female parent, but it did not alter male fertility or existing vegetative compatibility interactions. Replacement of the allele-specific portion of the coding sequence with the sequence of an alternate allele in N. crassa did not result in a vegetative incompatibility response in transformed strains of F. proliferatum. Thus, the fphch gene in Fusarium appears unlikely to have the vegetative compatibility function associated with its homologue in N. crassa. These results suggest that the vegetative compatibility phenotype may result from convergent evolution. Thus, the genes involved in this process may need to be identified at the species level or at the level of a group of species and could prove to be attractive targets for the development of antifungal agents.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Plant Pathology, 4024 Throckmorton Plant Sciences Center, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506-5502. Phone: (785) 532-6176. Fax: (785) 532-5692. E-mail: jfl{at}ksu.edu.

{dagger} Contribution no. 06-324-J from the Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station, Manhattan.

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, October 2006, p. 6527-6532, Vol. 72, No. 10
0099-2240/06/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.01543-06
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.





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