Meiotic segregation analysis of restriction site polymorphisms allows rapid genetic mapping.

The white rot fungus Phanerochaete chrysosporium is an efficient degrader of lignin. Development of classical genetics in this organism would require several years of work, so an alternative strategy was devised. As in the mapping of human genetic diseases, the approach depends on the presence of interallelic restriction site polymorphism, but differs in following their meiotic segregation into the haploid state. Using a set of 20 cloned sequences as probes we were able to demonstrate meiotic segregation of 14 restriction site polymorphisms from fruiting of a single dikaryotic culture and obtained evidence of genetic linkage within two groups of three and two of two. The method could be used to obtain a genetic map of this fungus and should be applicable to genetic analysis of any other organism for which haploid material is available.