Trans5α

The E. coli strain Trans5α (TransGen Biotech, Beijing, China) was used for plasmid construction and propagation in Luria-Bertani (LB) broth or on LB plates supplemented with ampicillin (100 μg/ml), kanamycin (50 μg/ml) when required. The A. tumefaciens strain EHA105 was used for transformation and grown in LB broth or on LB plates supplemented with kanamycin (50 μg/ml), rifampicin (50 μg/ml), streptomycin (50 μg/ml) when required. All strains were stored at −70 °C in 25% glycerol.
The method used for transformation of V. virens was performed as described before with minor modifications52 . Conidia suspensions were prepared as described in the UV irradiation section. To co-cultivate V. virens and A. tumefaciens, the spore concentration was adjusted to 10⁶ spores/ml. An aliquot of 200 μl of spore-bacterial cell mixture was spread onto a cellophane membrane on the co-medium containing 400 μM of acetosyringone. After incubation at 28 °C for 6 days, the membrane was transferred to a sterile empty plate, then covered with PSA containing 200 μg/ml of cephalosporin to suppress bacteria, and 200 μg/ml of hygromycin to select for V. virens transformants. After incubation at 28 °C for 8 to 10 days, the transformants were transferred to fresh PSA plates containing 200 μg/ml of hygromycin for a second round of selection.

The E. coli strain Trans5α (Transgen, China) and the A. tumefaciens strain EHA105 (Transduction Bio, China) were maintained in Luria–Bertani (LB) medium or YEP medium, respectively. C. militaris (provided by Jilin Agricultural University, China) was cultured on potato dextrose agar (PDA) plates. E. coli (ATCC 25922), Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 25923), Salmonella enteritidis, Bacillus subtilis, Enterococcus faecalis, Enterobacter aerogenes, Staphylococcus xylosus and Proteus mirabilis were supplied by Jilin Agricultural University and maintained in LB medium or Mueller–Hinton (MH) broth.