Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation of the entomopathogenic fungus Nomuraea rileyi

• An Agrobacterium-mediated transformation system for the entomopathogenic fungus N. rileyi was established.
• N. rileyi blastospores have a higher transformation efficiency compared with pre-cultured conidia.
• DsRed2 was used as a visible marker to readily detect transformants by fluorescence microscopy.
• The transformation protocol can be used to genetically manipulate N. rileyi and potentially other similar fungal pathogens.

An Agrobacterium-mediated genetic transformation system for the entomopathogenic fungus Nomuraea rileyi was established. Three binary T-DNA vectors, pPZP-Hph, pPZP-Hph-RNAi and pPZP-Hph-DsRed2, were constructed. The trpc promoter from Aspergillus nidulans was used as the cis-regulatory element to drive the expression of hygromycin phosphotransferase (hph) gene and DsRed2, which conferred the hygromycin B (Hyg B) resistance and red fluorescence visualization, respectively. The blastospores and conidia were used as the recipients. The blastospores’ transformation efficiency reached ∼20–40 transformants per 106 blastospores, whereas the conidia were not transformed. Based on an analysis of five generations of subcultures, PCR and Southern blotting assays, the Ptrpc-hph cassette had integrated into the genomes of all transformants, which contained single copy of the hph gene and showed mitotic stability. Abundant altered morphologic phenotypes in colonies, blastospores and hyphae formations were observed in the arbitrary insertional mutants of N. rileyi, which made it possible to study the relationships between the functions and the interrupted genes over the whole genome. The transformation protocol will promote the functional characterization of genes, and the construction of genetically engineered strains of this important entomopathogenic fungus, and potentially of other similar fungal pathogens.

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