SUMMARY

Hydrophobins are fungal cell wall proteins involved in aggregation of hyphae. Upon the devel-opment of the ectomycorrhizal symbiosis between tree roots and fungal hyphae, the transcripts of hydrophobin genes markedly accumulated. As the precise role of these proteins in symbiosis is not yet known, we develop heterologous expression system of the Pisolithus hydrophobin HYDPt-1. This gene has been introduced in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and in the ectomycorrhizal basidiomycete Hebeloma cylindrosporum. Introns were required for hydPt-1 transcript accumulation in the basidiomycete H. cylindrosporum. Heterologous transcript accumula-tion did not alter the phenotype of either species. The lack of altered phenotype resulted from the absence of HYDPt-1 polypeptide accumulation in trans-formed strains. 2