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Published April 16, 1996 | Published
Journal Article Open

Hyphal development in Neurospora crassa: Involvement of a two-component histidine kinase

Abstract

Two-component signal transduction systems are most often found in prokaryotic organisms where they are responsible for mediating the cellular responses to many environmental stimuli. These systems are composed of an autophosphorylating histidine kinase and a response regulator. We have found evidence for the existence of two-component histidine kinases in the eukaryotic filamentous fungus Neurospora crassa based on screening with degenerate primers to conserved regions of these signaling proteins. Subsequent cloning and sequencing of one member of this newly discovered group, nik-1+, shows that the predicted protein sequence shares homology with both the kinase and response regulator modules of two-component signaling proteins. In addition, the N-terminal region of the protein has a novel repeating 90-amino acid motif. Deletion of the nik-1+ gene in N. crassa results in an organism that displays aberrant hyphal structure, which is enhanced under conditions of high osmostress. Increased osmotic pressure during growth on solid medium leads to restricted colonial growth, loss of aerial hyphae formation, and no subsequent conidiophore development. This finding may have implications for mechanisms of fungal colonization and pathogenicity.

Additional Information

© 1996 by the National Academy of Sciences Contributed by Melvin I. Simon, December 11, 1995 The sequences reported in this paper have been deposited in the GenBank data base [accession nos. U50264 (genomic sequence) and U50263 (cDNA sequence)]. We would like to thank D. Stuart for the his-2+ cosmid, D. Stadler for the N. crassa strain Stadler, and G. Turner for the gift of N. crassa genomic DNA from 74A. We would also like to thank L. Brundage and G. Sanna for reading the manuscript and R. Metzenberg for helpful suggestions. This work was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (AI 19296). The publication costs of this article were defrayed in part by page charge payment. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. §1734 solely to indicate this fact.

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