Identification of the down-regulated genes in a mat1-2-deleted strain of Gibberella zeae, using cDNA subtraction and microarray analysis

Gibberella zeae (anamorph: Fusarium graminearum), a self-fertile ascomycete, is an important pathogen of cereal crops. Here, we have focused on the genes specifically controlled by the mating type (MAT) locus, a master regulator of sexual developmental process in G. zeae. To identify these genes, we employed suppression subtractive hybridization between a G. zeae wild-type strain Z03643 and the isogenic self-sterile mat1-2 strain T43ΔM2-2. Both reverse Northern and cDNA microarray analyses using 291 subtractive unigenes confirmed that 58.8% (171 genes) were significantly down-regulated in T43ΔM2-2. Among these, 98 could be either manually or automatically annotated based on known functions of their possible homologs. Northern blot analysis revealed that all of the genes examined were differentially regulated by MAT1-2 during sexual development. This study is the first report on the set of genes that are transcriptionally altered by the deletion of MAT1-2 during sexual reproduction in G. zeae.