Weiliang Zuo

This study develops blue-light inducible gene expression switches to control morphogenesis and pathogenesis in Ustilago maydis, demonstrating their utility in regulating fungal invasion and tumor formation.

This study uses a recombinant hybrid of two smut fungi to identify gene regulation and virulence factors contributing to pathogenic differences.

This study introduces RNP-mediated CRISPR/Cas9 for marker-free genome editing in Sporisorium reilianum, achieving efficient mutagenesis through frameshift, knock-in, and knock-out mutants.

The paper examines divergence in Ustilago maydis effector genes, finding that conserved genes peak during early infection stages while divergent genes peak during fungal proliferation.

The paper evaluates three high fidelity Cas9 variants in Ustilago maydis and identifies Cas9HF1 as the most specific, with no off-target effects observed.