BIDIRECTIONAL GENE-TRANSFER BETWEEN ASPERGILLUS-FUMIGATUS AND ASPERGILLUS-NIDULANS

A genomic DNA library was constructed from a pathogenic strain of Aspe rgillus fumigatus using the cosmid vector pCosAX. Cosmid clones with h omologies to the rodA, brlA, fluG, flbA or trpC genes from A. nidulans were isolated from the library. Each A. fumigatus clone was used to c omplement a strain of A. nidulans with a mutation in the homologous ge ne. A spontaneous white spored strain of A. fumigatus was isolated. Th e mutation was complemented by transforming the strain with a plasmid containing the wA gene from A. nidulans. The results from these experi ments indicate a significant degree of structural and functional homol ogy between genes from the organisms. These findings indicate the pote ntial to exploit the methods and information available from A. nidulan s to address questions related to human disease caused by A. fumigatus and the ability to use A. nidulans as a surrogate genetic host for ch aracterizing A. fumigatus gene function.