Lentinula edodes is an important cultivated mushroom in China. The development of Lentinula edodes production promotes more studies on it. In our previous work, degenerate PCR and chromosome walking technologies were used to obtain one pheromone receptor gene and one pheromone precursor gene from Lentinula edodes. In this study, four pairs of specific primers were designed according to the whole genome sequencing of the protoplast monokaryon of Lentinula edodes strain 135, to amplify STE3-like pheromone receptor gene and its flanking conserved genes in the protoplast monokaryon strain SUP2 derived from Lentinula edodes strain Suxiang and 33655bp DNA sequence was obtained. By BlastX search, seven putative genes were identified, and three of them are pheromone receptor encoded genes. Furthermore, near to two pheromone receptor genes, four genes encoding proteins with conserved motifs of pheromone precursors were found. This study firstly reveals the molecular organization of the B mating type locus of Lentinula edodes.

This study was conducted to develop superior hybrids of Pleurotus ostreatus with di-mono and mono-monoka-ryon crosses. Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA-PCR (RAPD-PCR) was used to compare its mitochondrial DNA profiles of hybrids using specific primers designed from microsatellite markers of Pleurotus salmoneo-stramineus. A total of fifty-six dikaryon-monokaryon hybrids were sampled for RAPD-PCR experiments and the results show that twenty-four hybrids were dikaryon and thirty-one hybrids were monokaryon. Interestingly, one hybrid was an intermediate form with the DNA profiles that are different from those of its parents. The DNA profiles from eighty-eight monokaryon-monokaryon hybrids were also analyzed by RAPD-PCR. The results of mitochondria DNA profiles show that seventy-one hybrids are the same to one of their parents, but seventeen hybrids show DNA profiles of both parents.