Fig. 2

Targeted knockout of UvATG8 and complement assay of the ∆Uvatg8 in Ustilaginoidea virens. a, Disruption strategy for the U. virens UvATG8 gene. The UvATG8 coding region was replaced with the hygromycin phosphotransferase gene cassette (HYG) by homologous recombination. b, Southern blot analysis of the WT (wild type) and ∆Uvatg8 mutant strains. The Xba I digested genomic DNA from the WT and ∆Uvatg8 strains were processed for the Southern blotting with the 1 Kb downstream of UvATG8 as the probe. c, qRT-PCR analysis of the expression of UvATG8 in the WT, ∆Uvatg8, and ∆Uvatg8-C strains. β-tubulin gene was used as the endogenous reference gene. The data represent the mean ± SD from three independent replicates. The data were subject to Duncan’s Test and the significant differences were indicated in the figure with two asterisks (**, p < 0.005)