A Special Phenotype of Aconidial <i>Aspergillus niger</i> SH2 and Its Mechanism of Formation via CRISPRi
2022
Le-Yi Yu | Lin-Xiang Li | Lin-Lin Yao | Jun-Wei Zheng | Bin Wang | Li Pan
The complex morphological structure of <i>Aspergillus niger</i> influences its production of proteins, metabolites, etc., making the genetic manipulation and clonal purification of this species increasingly difficult, especially in aconidial <i>Aspergillus niger</i>. In this study, we found that N-acetyl-D-glucosamine (GlcNAc) could induce the formation of spore-like propagules in the aconidial <i>Aspergillus niger</i> SH2 strain. The spore-like propagules possessed life activities such as drug resistance, genetic transformation, and germination. Transcriptomic analysis indicated that the spore-like propagules were resting conidia entering dormancy and becoming more tolerant to environmental stresses. The <i>Dac1</i> gene and the metabolic pathway of GlcNAc converted to glycolysis are related to the formation of the spore-like propagules, as evidenced by the CRISPRi system, qPCR, and semi-quantitative RT-PCR. Moreover, a method based on the CRISPR-Cas9 tool to rapidly recycle screening tags and recover genes was suitable for <i>Aspergillus niger</i> SH2. To sum up, this suggests that the spore-like propagules are resting conidia and the mechanism of their formation is the metabolic pathway of GlcNAc converted to glycolysis, particularly the <i>Dac1</i> gene. This study can improve our understanding of the critical factors involved in mechanisms of phenotypic change and provides a good model for researching phenotypic change in filamentous fungi.
Show more [+] Less [-]AGROVOC Keywords
Bibliographic information
This bibliographic record has been provided by Directory of Open Access Journals