Cloning of 18S and 25S rDNAs from the pathogenic fungus Cryptococcus neoformans

Cryptococcus neoformans is an important pathogenic fungus that has been classified as a basidiomycete. Little is known of the molecular genetics of this fungal pathogen. To begin such studies, we devised a procedure for extraction of DNA from cryptococci; this method involved the use of the cell wall-active enzyme NovoZym 234. Using cloned rDNA of Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a probe, we identified homologous restriction fragments in a Southern blot of digested C. neoformans DNA. An 8.6-kilobase HindIII fragment that hybridized with the yeast rDNA probe was ligated with the vector pBR322 and cloned into Escherichia coli. When the fragment was used as a probe, it hybridized to the 18S and 25S rRNAs of C. neoformans in Northern (RNA) blots of native and denatured RNA. It bound at high stringency only weakly to the rRNAs of the ascomycete S. cerevisiae. The locations of the genes for 5/5.8S, 18S, and 25S subunits in the cloned fragment were identified with labeled rRNA of these different types.