Genetic Manipulation of the Plant Pathogen Ustilago maydis to Study Fungal Biology and Plant Microbe InteractionsKristin Bösch *1,2, Lamprinos Frantzeskakis *1, Miroslav Vraneš 3, Jörg Kämper 3, Kerstin Schipper 1,2, Vera Göhre 1,2,4
1Institute for Microbiology, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, 2Bioeconomy Science Center (BioSC), 3Department of Genetics, Institute of Applied Biosciences, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, 4Cluster of Excellence in Plant Sciences (CEPLAS), Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf
We describe a robust gene replacement strategy to genetically manipulate the smut fungus Ustilago maydis. This protocol explains how to generate deletion mutants to investigate infection phenotypes. It can be extended to modify genes in any desired way, e.g., by adding a sequence encoding a fluorescent protein tag.
