An Efficient Strategy for Obtaining Mutants by Targeted Gene Deletion in .

The dimorphic fungus is the highly aggressive pathogen responsible for the current, highly destructive, pandemic of Dutch elm disease (DED). Genome and transcriptome analyses of this pathogen previously revealed that a large set of genes expressed during dimorphic transition were also potentially related to plant infection processes, which seem to be regulated by molecular mechanisms different from those described in other dimorphic pathogens. Then, can be used as a representative species to study the lifestyle of dimorphic pathogenic fungi that are not shared by the "model species" and In order to gain better knowledge of molecular aspects underlying infection process and symptom induction by dimorphic fungi that cause vascular wilt disease, we developed a high-throughput gene deletion protocol for .