Deletion of the trichodiene synthase gene of Fusarium venenatum: two systems for repeated gene deletions.

The trichodiene synthase (tri5) gene of Fusarium venenatum was cloned from a genomic library. Vectors were created in which the tri5 coding sequence was replaced with the Neurospora crassa nitrate reductase (nit3) gene and with the Aspergillus nidulans acetamidase (amdS) gene flanked by direct repeats. The first vector was utilized to transform a nitrate reductase (niaD) mutant of F. venenatum to prototrophy, and the second vector was utilized to confer acetamide utilization to the wild-type strain. Several of the transformants lost the capacity to produce the trichothecene diacetoxyscirpenol and were shown by hybridization analysis to have gene replacements at the tri5 locus. The nit3 gene was removed by retransformation with a tri5 deletion fragment and selection on chlorate. The amdS gene was shown to excise spontaneously via the flanking direct repeats when spores were plated onto fluoroacetamide.