Projects per year
Abstract
Microorganisms sense environmental fluctuations in nutrients and light, coordinating their growth and development accordingly. Despite their critical roles in fungi, only a few G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) have been characterized. The Aspergillus nidulans genome encodes 86 putative GPCRs. Here, we characterise a carbon starvation-induced GPCR-mediated glucose sensing mechanism in A. nidulans. This includes two class V (gprH and gprI) and one class VII (gprM) GPCRs, which in response to glucose promote cAMP signalling, germination and hyphal growth, while negatively regulating sexual development in a light-dependent manner. We demonstrate that GprH regulates sexual development via influencing VeA activity, a key light-dependent regulator of fungal morphogenesis and secondary metabolism. We show that GprH and GprM are light-independent negative regulators of sterigmatocystin biosynthesis. Additionally, we reveal the epistatic interactions between the three GPCRs in regulating sexual development and sterigmatocystin production. In conclusion, GprH, GprM and GprI constitute a novel carbon starvation-induced glucose sensing mechanism that functions upstream of cAMP-PKA signalling to regulate fungal development and mycotoxin production.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Article number | e1008419 |
Pages (from-to) | 1-27 |
Number of pages | 27 |
Journal | Plos Genetics |
Volume | 15 |
Issue number | 10 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 14 Oct 2019 |
Funding
This work was supported by the Funda??o de Amparo ? Pesquisa do Estado de S?o Paulo (FAPESP). This collaboration was founded by the BBSRC GCRF Accelerator Award [BB/GCRF-IAA/18]. The continued collaboration between Neil Brown and Gustavo Goldman was supported by a Research England QR 2018.19 funding and a University of Bath-FAPESP Sprint Award [VBBB3FNB and FAPESP 2018/22040-8]. Laura Mellado was supported by FAPESP 2015/12415-6 fellowship and a BEPE 2017/02464-5 to spend six months performing experiments in Dr Brown and Dr Zhou?s labs. Neil Brown was also supported by the BBSRC Future Leader Fellowship [BB/ N011686/1]. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. We thank Dr Jae-Hyuk Yu (UW-Madison) for providing the original A. nidulans GPCR knockout strains.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
- Molecular Biology
- Genetics
- Genetics(clinical)
- Cancer Research
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'GPCR-mediated glucose sensing system regulates light-dependent fungal development and mycotoxin production'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 1 Finished
Profiles
-
Neil Brown
- Department of Life Sciences - Senior Lecturer
- Milner Centre for Evolution
Person: Research & Teaching, Core staff