Transformation of the entomopathogenic fungi, paecilomyces fumosoroseus and paecilomyces lilacinus (deuteromycotina: hyphomycetes) to benomyl resistence

ABSTRACT

The entomopathogenic fungi Paecilomyces fumosoroseus and P. lilacinus have been transformed to resistance to the fungicide benomyl by a polyethylene glycol (PEG)-mediated procedure using a mutant b-tubulin gene from Neurospora crassa carried on plasmid pBT6. Benomyl-resistant transformants of P. lilacinus were obtained that could tolerate greater than 30 µg/ml benomyl and P. fumosoroseus transformants were obtained that could tolerate 20 µg/ml benomyl. Following 5 serial passages of transformants on benomyl-containing media and 5 serial passages on non-selective media, 100 per cent of P. lilacinus transformants were found to be mitotically stable by a conidial germination test. In contrast, only 4 out of 9 transformants of P. fumosoroseus were mitotically stable. Southern blot analysis of genomic DNA from both species suggested that the mechanism of transformation in all transformants was by gene replacement of the b-tubulin allele. Non-homologous vector sequences were not detectable in the genomes of transformants.