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Ferrochelatase is a conserved downstream target of the blue light-sensing White collar complex in fungi.

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Date
2010-08
Authors
Idnurm, Alexander
Heitman, Joseph
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Abstract
Light is a universal signal perceived by organisms, including fungi, in which light regulates common and unique biological processes depending on the species. Previous research has established that conserved proteins, originally called White collar 1 and 2 from the ascomycete Neurospora crassa, regulate UV/blue light sensing. Homologous proteins function in distant relatives of N. crassa, including the basidiomycetes and zygomycetes, which diverged as long as a billion years ago. Here we conducted microarray experiments on the basidiomycete fungus Cryptococcus neoformans to identify light-regulated genes. Surprisingly, only a single gene was induced by light above the commonly used twofold threshold. This gene, HEM15, is predicted to encode a ferrochelatase that catalyses the final step in haem biosynthesis from highly photoreactive porphyrins. The C. neoformans gene complements a Saccharomyces cerevisiae hem15Delta strain and is essential for viability, and the Hem15 protein localizes to mitochondria, three lines of evidence that the gene encodes ferrochelatase. Regulation of HEM15 by light suggests a mechanism by which bwc1/bwc2 mutants are photosensitive and exhibit reduced virulence. We show that ferrochelatase is also light-regulated in a white collar-dependent fashion in N. crassa and the zygomycete Phycomyces blakesleeanus, indicating that ferrochelatase is an ancient target of photoregulation in the fungal kingdom.
Type
Journal article
Subject
Cryptococcus neoformans
Ferrochelatase
Fungal Proteins
Gene Deletion
Gene Expression Regulation, Fungal
Genes, Fungal
Genetic Complementation Test
Light
Mitochondria
Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis
Phycomyces
RNA, Fungal
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/4166
Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1099/mic.0.039222-0
Publication Info
Idnurm, Alexander; & Heitman, Joseph (2010). Ferrochelatase is a conserved downstream target of the blue light-sensing White collar complex in fungi. Microbiology, 156(Pt 8). pp. 2393-2407. 10.1099/mic.0.039222-0. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/4166.
This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Scholars@Duke

Heitman

Joseph Heitman

Chair, Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology
Joseph Heitman was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago (1980-1984), graduating from the BS-MS program with dual degrees in chemistry and biochemistry with general and special honors. He then matriculated as an MD-PhD student at Cornell and Rockefeller Universities and worked with Peter Model and Norton Zinder on how restriction enzymes recognize specific DNA sequences and how bacteria respond to and repair DNA breaks and nicks. Dr. Heitman moved as an EMBO long-term fellow to the Bi
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