Construction and characterization of genomic libraries of two endomycorrhizal fungi:: Glomus versiforme and Gigaspora margarita

Arbuscular (AM) mycorrhizal fungi form symbiotic associations with the roots of plants that lead to increased growth and health of many plants. The agricultural application of mycorrhizas has remained difficult since AM fungi are obligate biotrophs that show only very limited growth in the absence of a host. As a first step in the molecular and genetic characterization of these fungi we have constructed genomic libraries of Glomus versiforme and Gigaspora margarita. We demonstrated that in addition to fungal genes these libraries contain clones derived from the genome of endosymbiotic bacteria that are present in fungal spores. A genomic clone encoding elongation factor I alpha (EF-I) was isolated from G. versiforme and to our knowledge this is the first time a low copy number gene was cloned from an AM fungus. The EF-I promoter is highly active in mycorrhizal roots and will be an important tool for the expression of foreign genes in the fungus.