"Select and Resequence" Methods Enable a Genome-Wide Association Study of the Dimorphic Human Fungal Pathogen Coccidioides posadasii.

ABSTRACT: Next-generation sequencing has unlocked a wealth of genotype information for wild populations, but interpreting it in the context of phenotypes remains a bottleneck, particularly for nonmodel organisms that are difficult to manipulate. To meet this challenge, we pioneered a method for the mapping of genotype to phenotype in natural populations for the thermally dimorphic pathogenic fungus Coccidioides posadasii, using temperature-responsive growth as a proof of concept. We first sequenced the genomes of 66 natural C. posadasii isolates. We then mixed these strains into pools, competed them in growth assays at 37 °C and room temperature, and sequenced the resulting DNA mixtures. We inferred the abundance of each strain in the pool from the sequence coverage of polymorphisms across their gen

SUBMITTER: Voorhies M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12301965 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature