Haikun Qi

Mrs. Haikun Qi


Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

2Years (2025-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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13 March 2025 in Journal of Fungi
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
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HQHaikun Qi
Haikun Qi
HRHaihua Ruan
Haihua Ruan
TWTao Wu
Tao Wu
HZHongyang Zhang
Hongyang Zhang
RDRui Dong
Rui Dong
YJYanjun Jiang
Yanjun Jiang
Cordyceps cicadae (C. cicadae) is an important edible medicinal fungus; however, owing to its wild growth and lack of genome annotation, construction of a stable genetic transformation system in C. cicadae is greatly limited, impeding the extensive exploitation of C. cicadae in industry. Here, we successfully established an efficient plasmid transformation method within protoplasts of C. cicadae by PEG mediation using pCas9-EGFP as a marker plasmid. In order to overcome low transformation efficiency and acquire sufficient protoplasts for transformation, the influence of enzyme species, enzymatic hydrolysis time, enzymatic hydrolysis temperature, and fungal age on protoplast preparation were analyzed sequentially, and the optimal conditions for protoplast preparation were determined as follows: 2-day-old C. cicadae mycelia with 1.5% lywallzyme hydrolysis at 34 °C for 5 h. Our results indicate that no less than 5.1 × 107 CFU/mL protoplasts could be acquired. Additionally, five osmotic pressure stabilizers including potassium chloride (KCl), sodium chloride (NaCl), glucose, mannitol, and sucrose were employed to enhance the regeneration of protoplasts, among which sucrose exhibited the highest regeneration rate of 10.43%. The transformation efficiency of plasmid was 37.3 CFU/µg DNA. On this basis, a genetic transformation method was successfully constructed, laying the foundation for further gene editing and metabolic engineering of C. cicadae.