Isolation, characterization and sequence of a gene conferring resistance to the systemic fungicide carboxin from the maize smut pathogen, Ustilago maydis.

A gene which confers resistance to the systemic fungicide carboxin (Cbx) has been isolated from the maize pathogen, Ustilago maydis, by transferring a plasmid gene library from a Cbx-resistant mutant strain into a sensitive strain and selecting for expression of the resistance gene. Five plasmids, rescued from transformants which exhibited enhanced resistance to Cbx, were shown to have DNA inserts with common restriction enzyme fragments. All the plasmids transformed a sensitive U. maydis strain to Cbx resistance. The gene (Cbxr), sub-cloned on a 3.2 kb EcoR1-HindIII fragment, transformed U. maydis to Cbx resistance at frequencies similar to those obtained with the bacterial Hygromycin B resistance (HygBr) gene. The sequence of the Cbxr gene showed a high degree of homology to succinate dehydrogenase (EC 1.3.99.1) iron-sulphur subunit genes from other organisms.