Neurospora crassa mat A-2 and mat A-3 proteins weakly interact in the yeast two-hybrid system and affect yeast growth

• Autor(a) principal: Silva,Carla C. da
• Data de Publicação: 2009
• Outros Autores: Cruz,Rosana C., Bucciarelli-Rodriguez,Mônica, Vilas-Boas,Adlane
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Genetics and Molecular Biology
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1415-47572009000200023
• topic: Neurospora crassa; mating-type; yeast two-hybrid system

Mating-type genes control the entry into the sexual cycle, mating identity and sexual development in fungi. The mat A-2 and mat A-3 genes, present in the mat A idiomorph of the filamentous fungus Neurospora crassa, are required for post-fertilization functions but are not essential for mating identity. Their putative roles as transcription factors are based on the similarity of mat A-2 with the Podospora anserina SMR1 gene and an HMG motif present in the mat A-3 gene. In this work the yeast two-hybrid system was used to identify transcriptional activity and protein-protein interaction of N. crassa mat A-2 and mat A-3 genes. We observed that the mat A-3 protein alone is capable of weakly activating transcription of yeast reporter genes; it also binds with low specificity to the GAL1 promoter sequence, possibly due to its HMG domain. Our results also indicate that mat A-3 is capable to form homodimers, and interact with mat A-2. Interference on yeast growth was observed on some transformants suggesting a toxic action of the mat A-2 protein. Our data on pattern of interactions of mat proteins contributes towards understanding the control of vegetative and sexual cycles in filamentous fungi.