Investigating the presence of rhythmic transcriptional oscillations in the plant-pathogenic fungus Verticillium dahliae.

The circadian clock is a time-keeping mechanism that allows organisms to anticipate and synchronise to the daily environmental changes. The plant pathogenic fungus Verticillium dahliae contains homologues of all the molecular components required for a functional clock in other related fungal organisms such as Neurospora crassa. The study aims to find evidence for an endogenous, free-running and entrainable rhythm at the transcriptional level in V. dahliae in both wild type and a clock mutant strains.