Project description:To identify peanut Aspergillus-interactive and Aspergillus-resistance genes, we carried out a large scale peanut Expressed Sequence Tag (EST) project followed by a peanut microarray study. For expression profiling, resistant and susceptible peanut cultivars were infected with a mixture of Aspergillus flavus and parasiticus spores. Microarray analysis identified 65 and 1 genes in resistant (C20) and susceptible (TF) cultivars, respectively, that were up-regulated in response to Aspergillus infection. In addition we identified 40 putative Aspergillus-resistance genes that were constitutively up-expressed in the resistant cultivar in comparison to the susceptible cultivar. Some of these genes were homologous to peanut, corn, and soybean genes previously shown to confer resistance to fungal infection. These results provide a comprehensive genome-scale platform for future studies focused on developing Aspergillus-resistant peanut cultivars through conventional breeding, marker-assisted breeding, or biotechnological methods by gene manipulation.
Project description:Expression data from batch cultivations of Aspergillus niger wild type strain ATCC 1015 and adrA, facB and creA deletion mutants constructed on ATCC 1015 background strain with glucose or glycerol as carbon sources. Genome-wide transcriptome analysis was used to identify genes either affected directly or indirectly by each transcription factor investigated during growth on a repressing or a derepressing carbon source. For this purpose, batch cultivations under well-controlled conditions were performed with Aspergillus niger wild type strain ATCC 1015 and the three deletion mutants of the corresponding transcription factors AdrA, FacB and CreA. Samples for RNA extraction were collected and further processed for hybridization in custom-designed Affymetrix microarrays containing probes for three Aspergillus species, including A. niger.
Project description:This approach aims at searching unidentified regulatory roles of the AreB transcription factor in the overall carbon metabolism of A. niger. A full areB gene deletion mutant was constructed and characterized in A. niger ATCC 1015. Both strains were grown on glucose or glycerol using ammonia as nitrogen source in batch cultivations and the transcriptome was analyzed using three biological replicated transcriptome experiments. Two areB gene deletion replicates, one on glucose and one on glycerol were discarded due to bad quality and therefore not included in the analysis. Samples for RNA extraction were collected and further processed for hybridization in custom designed Affymetrix microarrays containing probes for three Aspergillus species including A. niger. Triplicate batch fermentations with the two Aspergillus niger strains used, the wild type A. niger strain ATCC 1015 and the areB complete gene deletion strain were carried out and transcriptome analysis was performed. Biomass from each batch cultivation was harvested in the exponential phase of growth and further processed for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays.