Insertion of the LINE Retrotransposon MGL Causes a Conidiophore Pattern Mutation in Magnaporthe grisea

We obtained three Magnaporthe grisea morphological mutants that had the LINE transposon MGL inserted into the ACR1 locus. Sequence analysis revealed that ACR1 is homologous to medA, a developmental regulator of Aspergillus nidulans conidiation. These results demonstrated that MGL elements could transpose and cause insertional mutagenesis in M. grisea.