Home • Phycomyces blakesleeanus L51 v1.0
Phycomyces blakesleeanus L51. Photo by Lola PĂ©rez de Camino.
Phycomyces blakesleeanus L51. Photo by Lola Pérez de Camino.

Phycomyces blakesleeanus L51 is a strain with mutations in genes madA and madB and is often used as a blind mutant in studies of light regulation. The fruiting bodies, sporangiophores, of P. blakesleeanus react to a number of stimuli including light, gravity, wind and the presence of nearby objects, by changing the direction and speed of growth. A number of phototropic mutants, mad mutants, have been isolated and genes madA and madB encode proteins that form a light-sensitive transcription factor complex (Idnurm et al. 2006, Sanz et al. 2009). A strain with the mutations in the two genes, L51, was isolated by genetic crossing of a strain with a madA mutation, C21, and a strain with a madB mutation of the opposite mating type, C303 (Lipson et al. 1980). The strain contains genome sequence from the standard wild type strain NRRL1555 that has been sequence by JGI (Corrochano et al. 2016) and the wild type strain of the opposite mating type UBC21. The combined mutations reduced to very low levels the capacity of the strain to respond to light. The sequence of P. blakesleeanus L51 will provide reference information of the genome for comparisons with other P. blakesleeanus strains in relation to possible epigenetic changes occuring during light sensing.

References:

Corrochano LM et al. Expansion of signal transduction pathways in fungi by extensive genome duplication. Curr Biol. 26, 1577-1584 (2016).

Idnurm A, Rodríguez-Romero J, Corrochano LM, Sanz C, Iturriaga EA, Eslava AP, Heitman J. The Phycomyces madA gene encodes a blue-light photoreceptor for phototropism and other light responses. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 103, 4546-4551 (2006)

Lipson ED, Terasaka DT, Silverstein PS. Double mutants of Phycomyces with abnormal phototropism. Mol Gen Genet 179, 155-162 (1980)

Sanz C, Rodríguez-Romero J, Idnurm A, Christie JM, Heitman J, Corrochano LM, Eslava AP. Phycomyces MADB interacts with MADA to form the primary photoreceptor complex for fungal phototropism. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 106, 7095-7100 (2009)