Journal article

A Ras GTPase associated protein is involved in the phototropic and circadian photobiology responses in fungi

S Polaino, JM Villalobos-Escobedo, VPS Shakya, A Miralles-Durán, S Chaudhary, C Sanz, M Shahriari, EM Luque, AP Eslava, LM Corrochano, A Herrera-Estrella, A Idnurm

Scientific Reports | NATURE PORTFOLIO | Published : 2017

Abstract

Light is an environmental signal perceived by most eukaryotic organisms and that can have major impacts on their growth and development. The MadC protein in the fungus Phycomyces blakesleeanus (Mucoromycotina) has been postulated to form part of the photosensory input for phototropism of the fruiting body sporangiophores, but the madC gene has remained unidentified since the 1960s when madC mutants were first isolated. In this study the madC gene was identified by positional cloning. All madC mutant strains contain loss-of-function point mutations within a gene predicted to encode a GTPase activating protein (GAP) for Ras. The madC gene complements the Saccharomyces cerevisiae Ras-GAP ira1 m..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council


Funding Acknowledgements

We express our thanks to Robert Schnittker, Aric Wiest, Michael Plamann and Kevin McCluskey (Fungal Genetics Stock Center) and Maria Olmedo for providing strains, reagents, advice and protocols. We are grateful to Anandakrishnan Venkatesan and Jeffrey Price for sharing their incubators and facilities for circadian studies. The US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute provided access to the P. blakesleeanus genome sequences prior to their publication. This research was supported by European funds (European Regional Development Fund, ERDF to L.M.C.), the Spanish Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia (BIO2015-67148-R to L.M.C.), the Andalusian Government (P09-CVI-5027 to L.M.C.), the US National Science Foundation (MCB-0920581 to A. I.) and an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (A. I.). J.M.V.-E. is indebted to CONACYT for a doctoral fellowship.