Generation of Benomyl Resistant Beauveria bassiana Strains and Their Infectivity Against Helicoverpa armigera

Abstract

Beauveria bassiana transformants were obtained by conventional protoplasting and transformed by eletroporation and polyethylene glycol (PEG) treatment. These displayed mitotic stability in Beauveria bassiana . Strains transformed with pSV50 harbouring the &#103 -tubulin gene of Neurospora crassa grew well on benomyl concentrations of 10 &#119 g ml -1 unlike the recipient strain. The transformants were mitotically stable on either selective or non-selective medium. The efficiency of transformation by linear and circular pSV50 cosmid was 8 and 10 transformants per mug DNA per ml viable protoplast by electroporation, respectively, and 4 and 6 by the protoplast PEG method, respectively. Southern blot and hybridization of undigested fungal DNA of wild type and four transformants, probed with &#103 -tubulin sequence of pSV50, showed hybridization at high M r region of genomic DNA in four transformants, whereas in wild type genomic DNA, no homology of the sequence was observed. Digested genomic DNA, of four transformants gave a complex hybridization pattern. Virulence tests of the transformants showed that there was no significant loss in the pathogenicity toward Helicoverpa armigera third instar larvae. This method of transformation should prove useful with entomopathogenic fungal species in which a genetic transformation system has not yet been established.