6533b853fe1ef96bd12acb4b
RESEARCH PRODUCT
Marked Neurospora crassa strains for competition experiments and Bayesian methods for fitness estimates
Eric U. SelkerIlkka KronholmTarmo KetolaKevin J McnaughtTereza OrmsbyTereza Ormsbysubject
0106 biological sciencesGenetics0303 health sciencesMating typeExperimental evolutionbiologyevoluutiobiologiaCrassaLocus (genetics)QH426-470biology.organism_classification010603 evolutionary biology01 natural sciencesDNA extractionhigh resolution meltingNeurospora crassacompetitive fitness03 medical and health sciencesGeneticsfungiexperimental evolutionAllelesienetGene030304 developmental biologydescription
AbstractThe filamentous fungusNeurospora crassa, a model microbial eukaryote, has a life cycle with many features that make it suitable for studying experimental evolution. However, it has lacked a general tool for estimating relative fitness of different strains in competition experiments. To remedy this need, we constructedN. crassastrains that contain a modifiedcsr-1locus and developed an assay for detecting the proportion of the marked strain using a post PCR high resolution melting assay. DNA extraction from spore samples can be performed on 96-well plates, followed by a PCR step, which allows many samples to be processed with ease. Furthermore, we suggest a Bayesian approach for estimating relative fitness from competition experiments that takes into account the uncertainty in measured strain proportions. We show that there is a fitness effect of the mating type locus, as mating typemat ahas a higher competitive fitness thanmat A. Thecsr-1* marker also has a small fitness effect, but is still a suitable marker for competition experiments. As a proof of concept, we estimate the fitness effect of theqde-2mutation, a gene in the RNA interference pathway, and show that its competitive fitness is lower than what would be expected from its mycelial growth rate alone.
year | journal | country | edition | language |
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2019-08-19 |