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Neurospora crassa A mating-type region.

ABSTRACT: The mating-type locus of the haploid filamentous fungus Neurospora crassa is a regulatory region that controls entry into the sexual cycle and prevents formation of mixed mating-type heterokaryons in the vegetative phase. The locus consists of alternative sequences called A and a. The A mating-type DNA sequence of Neurospora crassa is composed of a region of 5301 base pairs that has little similarity to the sequence present at the mating-type locus in an a mating-type strain. However, the sequences flanking the mating-type locus in the A haploid and a haploid genome are essentially identical. The region of the A mating-type sequence required for expression of the heterokaryon incompatibility and sexual functions has been localized to a single open reading frame (ORF) encoding a polypeptide of 288 amino acids. Sequence analysis of sterile, heterokaryon-compatible mutants reveals frameshift mutations in this same ORF. The putative 288-amino acid product has a region of similarity to the MAT alpha 1 polypeptide of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

SUBMITTER: Glass NL

PROVIDER: S-EPMC54231 | biostudies-other | 1990 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Neurospora crassa A mating-type region.

Glass N L NL Grotelueschen J J Metzenberg R L RL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 19900701 13

The mating-type locus of the haploid filamentous fungus Neurospora crassa is a regulatory region that controls entry into the sexual cycle and prevents formation of mixed mating-type heterokaryons in the vegetative phase. The locus consists of alternative sequences called A and a. The A mating-type DNA sequence of Neurospora crassa is composed of a region of 5301 base pairs that has little similarity to the sequence present at the mating-type locus in an a mating-type strain. However, the sequen ...[more]

PMID: 2142303

Similar Datasets

Molecular characterization of tol, a mediator of mating-type-associated vegetative incompatibility in Neurospora crassa.

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Directed replacement of mt A by mt a-1 effects a mating type switch in Neurospora crassa.

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Structure of the chromosome VII centromere region in Neurospora crassa: degenerate transposons and simple repeats.

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Project description:Proteins in the Rho family are small monomeric GTPases primarily involved in polarization, control of cell division, and reorganization of cytoskeletal elements. Phylogenetic analysis of predicted fungal Rho proteins suggests that a new Rho-type GTPase family, whose founding member is Rho4 from the archiascomycete Schizosaccharomyces pombe, is involved in septation. S. pombe rho4Delta mutants have multiple, abnormal septa. In contrast to S. pombe rho4Delta mutants, we show that strains containing rho-4 loss-of-function mutations in the filamentous fungus Neurospora crassa lead to a loss of septation. Epitope-tagged RHO-4 localized to septa and to the plasma membrane. In other fungi, the steps required for septation include formin, septin, and actin localization followed by cell wall synthesis and the completion of septation. rho-4 mutants were unable to form actin rings, showing that RHO-4 is required for actin ring formation. Characterization of strains containing activated alleles of rho-4 showed that RHO-4-GTP is likely to initiate new septum formation in N. crassa.

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Heterochromatin controls ?H2A localization in Neurospora crassa.

Project description:In response to genotoxic stress, ATR and ATM kinases phosphorylate H2A in fungi and H2AX in animals on a C-terminal serine. The resulting modified histone, called ?H2A, recruits chromatin-binding proteins that stabilize stalled replication forks or promote DNA double-strand-break repair. To identify genomic loci that might be prone to replication fork stalling or DNA breakage in Neurospora crassa, we performed chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) of ?H2A followed by next-generation sequencing (ChIP-seq). ?H2A-containing nucleosomes are enriched in Neurospora heterochromatin domains. These domains are comprised of A·T-rich repetitive DNA sequences associated with histone H3 methylated at lysine-9 (H3K9me), the H3K9me-binding protein heterochromatin protein 1 (HP1), and DNA cytosine methylation. H3K9 methylation, catalyzed by DIM-5, is required for normal ?H2A localization. In contrast, ?H2A is not required for H3K9 methylation or DNA methylation. Normal ?H2A localization also depends on HP1 and a histone deacetylase, HDA-1, but is independent of the DNA methyltransferase DIM-2. ?H2A is globally induced in dim-5 mutants under normal growth conditions, suggesting that the DNA damage response is activated in these mutants in the absence of exogenous DNA damage. Together, these data suggest that heterochromatin formation is essential for normal DNA replication or repair.

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Circadian rhythms synchronize mitosis in Neurospora crassa.

Project description:The cell cycle and the circadian clock communicate with each other, resulting in circadian-gated cell division cycles. Alterations in this network may lead to diseases such as cancer. Therefore, it is critical to identify molecular components that connect these two oscillators. However, molecular mechanisms between the clock and the cell cycle remain largely unknown. A model filamentous fungus, Neurospora crassa, is a multinucleate system used to elucidate molecular mechanisms of circadian rhythms, but not used to investigate the molecular coupling between these two oscillators. In this report, we show that a conserved coupling between the circadian clock and the cell cycle exists via serine/threonine protein kinase-29 (STK-29), the Neurospora homolog of mammalian WEE1 kinase. Based on this finding, we established a mathematical model that predicts circadian oscillations of cell cycle components and circadian clock-dependent synchronized nuclear divisions. We experimentally demonstrate that G1 and G2 cyclins, CLN-1 and CLB-1, respectively, oscillate in a circadian manner with bioluminescence reporters. The oscillations of clb-1 and stk-29 gene expression are abolished in a circadian arrhythmic frq(ko) mutant. Additionally, we show the light-induced phase shifts of a core circadian component, frq, as well as the gene expression of the cell cycle components clb-1 and stk-29, which may alter the timing of divisions. We then used a histone hH1-GFP reporter to observe nuclear divisions over time, and show that a large number of nuclear divisions occur in the evening. Our findings demonstrate the circadian clock-dependent molecular dynamics of cell cycle components that result in synchronized nuclear divisions in Neurospora.

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