Agrobacterium tumefaciens-Mediated Transformation Systems for Genetic Manipulation in Agriculturally Important Fungi

Fungi play vital roles in agricultural production. Strategies for strain improvement or molecular inspection of biological processes in fungi usually require genetic tools. Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation (ATMT) provides a powerful tool for gene transfer in a broad spectrum of fungal species.In contrast to other transformation methods, different fungal structures including spores, hyphae, protoplasts, and fruiting body tissues can be used as starting materials for ATMT. Numerous ATMT-based systems have been developed and exploited for genetic manipulation in yeasts, filamentous fungi, and mushrooms. Gene disruption by homologous recombination using ATMT is also indicated to be highly efficient in some fungi. ATMT promotes the single-copy integration of transferred DNA (T-DNA) into the fungal genome and, therefore, it is widely employed to construct collections of random T-DNA insertional mutants for discovering novel genes in fungi. Potential applications of ATMT in basic and applied fungal research, especially for agriculturally important fungi, will be continuously exploited.