Genome complexity of the maize rust fungus, Puccinia sorghi

Abstract

The base composition and complexity of genomic DNA from Puccinia sorghi have been estimated by thermal denaturation, analytical ultracentrifugation, and reassociation kinetics. The buoyant density of genomic DNA in CsCl was found to be 1.7021 g/ml, which corresponds to a GC content of 43%. From thermal denaturation curves the GC content was estimated to be 41%. The haploid genome size of P. sorghi was estimated to be 4.7 × 10 7 bp, half of which represented a moderately repetitive fraction. The size of the P. sorghi genome is similar to that of other basidiomycete fungi; however, the amount of repetitive DNA is greater than that reported for most other fungi.