Histoplasma is a primary fungal pathogen with the ability to infect otherwise healthy mammalian hosts, causing systemic and sometimes life-threatening disease. Thus far, molecular genetic manipulation of this organism has utilized RNA interference, random insertional mutagenesis, and a homologous recombination protocol that is highly variable and often inefficient. Targeted gene manipulations have been challenging due to poor rates of homologous recombination events in Histoplasma. Interrogation of the virulence strategies of this organism would be highly accelerated by a means of efficiently generating targeted mutations. We have developed a recyclable CRISPR/Cas9 system that can be used to introduce gene disruptions in Histoplasma with high efficiency, thereby allowing disruption of multiple genes.
Keywords: CRISPR; Histoplasma; fungal pathogenesis; genome editing.