Chromosomal polymorphism, syntenic relationships, and ploidy in the pathogenic fungus Paracoccidioides brasiliensis

Diversity in Paracoccidioides brasiliensis . The PbGP43 gene as a genetic marker

“…They found a haploid number of 4 or 5 chromosomal bands, ranging from approximately 2-10 Mb. These observations were later confirmed with an increased sample, including environmental isolates [40,41]. Distinct karyotype profiles showed rather variable banding sizes, characterizing chromosomal length polymorphism.…”

“…The hybridization data [41] provided evidence that translocation and reciprocal translocation might contribute to chromosomal polymorphism in P. brasiliensis and that chromosomal rearrangements could provide a means for genetic variation in this organism, as proposed to occur in Candida albicans, and other fungi and eukaryotes [43][44][45]. The results on the molecular karyotypes of pathogenic fungi demonstrate the overwhelmingly fluidity of chromosome organization among eukaryotes with small genomes, which probably contributes to the maintenance of genome functionality and control of gene expression.…”

“…In order to determine chromosome identity, Feitosa et al [41] used genetic markers corresponding to nine P. brasiliensis genes as probes to hybridize Southern blots of intact chromosomal bands from 12 isolates. Six distinct karyotype profiles and three synteny groups (genetic linkage groups) were identified containing two or three genes each.…”

“…The size of the fungus genome was initially estimated to be in the range of 23-31 Mb by the summation of the molecular weights of chromosome-sized DNA molecules resolved by PFGE (or CHEF) [38][39][40][41]. However, when the genome size of several isolates was calculated by microfluorometry of 4 0 ,6-diamino-2-phenylindole (DAPI)-stained nuclei [39,41] some values (60 Mb) reached twice those estimated by PGFE.…”

Insights into the pathobiology of Paracoccidioides brasiliensis from transcriptome analysis—advances and perspectives

“…brasiliensis has been shown to be refractory to classical genetic analysis. Recently, however, careful analyses have established that it has a genome of [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35] Mb distributed in four or five chromosomes [3][4][5]. Ploidy is not consensual; some groups have proposed several isolates to be diploid [3,4], whereas other have used different techniques to propose that most isolates be either haploid or aneuploid [5].…”