Fungal Genetics

Strengths of Yeast Genetics

Ease of handling,

No ethical issues,

Full genome sequenced,

Easily genetically modified,

Genetically traceable and tractable,

Weaknesses of Yeast Genetics

Its not a mammal,

Its not unicellular,

Small cell and sub-components,

Which Fungi are used in Genetics

Model Fungi Examples:

Saccharomyces Cerevisiae,

Schizosaccharomyces Pombe,

Neurospora Crassa,

Coprinopsis Cinerea,

Genetic research is also done on many other species,

Additionally, there are many pathogenic fungi, which are studies using genetics, such as Candida
Albicans, and other Candida species.

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 Coprinopsis Cinerea: Toadstool

Coprinopsis is a basidiomycete, distantly related to the shaggy inkcap.

Sordaria Macrospora: Fungus

Sordaria is an ascomycete closely related to neurospora,

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 What are Yeasts

Yeasts are not a phylogenetically homogenous group,

Yeasts are uni-cellular fungi,

Most yeast species belong to the ascomycetes, but there are also basidiomycetous yeasts,
Some fungi can even switch between yeast and hyphal forms.

Fungal Sex Determination

What is the mating type:

It is the sex determining locus in fungi, often abbreviated as MAT or MTL,

Ascomycetes tend to have two possible idiomorphs (alleles) similar to male and female in
animals,

In Saccharomycetales, including Candida spp. These two idiomorphs are called a and α,

In Fission yeast (Schizosaccharomyces Pombe), they are called P (+), and M (-),

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 Some ascomycetes, including the two model yeasts, are able to switch their mating type
(homothallic fungi),

They can change from a to α, and vice versa.

Many fungi have mixed mating types (heterothallic), and in homothallic fungi, mating types can
be fixed by genetic means.
Basidiomycetes mostly have far more complex sex determining systems,

They can involve more than one locus, and notably more than two idiomorphs.

Genetic Traceability

Genetic Tractability
There are not only several nutritional markers (prototroph/auxotroph), mutations causing
deficiencies in various metabolic pathways such as:

Adenine: ade1, ade2, ade3, …

Arginine: arg1, arg2, arg3, …

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 Histidine: his1, his2, his3, …

Leucine: leu1, leu2, leu3, …

Lysine: lys1, lys2, lys3, …

Uracil: ura1, ura2, ura3, …

But there are also antibiotics active against eukaryotes:

Geneticin (G418): kanMX

ClonNat (Nourseothricin): natMX

Hygromycin B: hphMX

Blasticidin: bsdMX

Bleomycin: bleMX

Genetic Modification

Random mutagenesis of the genome:

To look for a particular phenotype (forward genetics),

Deletion/targeted mutation of a gene of interest:

This will give you a testable phenotype (reverse genetics),

Tagging of open reading frames:

To understand where the protein produced by a gene localises,

Reverse genetics is identifying a gene of interest by molecular cloning or bioinformatics. This is

made easy by availability of full genomic sequences and prediction of open reading frames
(annotation).

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 Genetic Screens

Rather than random mutagenesis of your starting material, there are whole libraries of full
deletion mutants of both yeasts.

Pathogenic Fungi

Initially most fungi, pathogenic ones in particular, were considered to be asexual. Only in the last
two decades it has been discovered that many fungi previously believed to propagate only
asexually, actually undergo sexual reproduction or parasexual processes.

Mating Competence:

Diploids need to be homozygous at the MTL,

Selective loss of chromosome 5 (containing the MTL) and the subsequent duplication of the
remaining copy of the chromosome,

Recombination event at the MTL (loss of heterozygosity),

Homozygous a/a or α/α, cells need to undergo a mophological transition from white to
opaque,

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