Efficient downregulation of alb1 gene using an AMA1-based episomal expression of RNAi construct in Aspergillus fumigatus.

An episomal RNAi silencing construct containing the inducible cbhB promoter and a hairpin structure has been made to downregulate the alb1 gene in the human pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus. Transformation of fungal protoplasts resulted in a high number of transformants with an inducible silenced phenotype (white spores). Efficient downregulation of the alb1 gene using this system suggests that this approach may overcome the variable downregulation observed with integrative constructs.