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Eukaryotic Cell, June 2002, p. 440-447, Vol. 1, No. 3
1535-9778/02/$04.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/EC.1.3.440-447.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

G-Protein Signaling Mediates Asexual Development at 25°C but Has No Effect on Yeast-Like Growth at 37°C in the Dimorphic Fungus Penicillium marneffei

Sophie Zuber, Michael J. Hynes,* and Alex Andrianopoulos

Department of Genetics, University of Melbourne, 3010 Victoria, Australia

Received 27 November 2001/ Accepted 3 February 2002

The ascomycete Penicillium marneffei is an opportunistic human pathogen exhibiting a temperature-dependent dimorphic switch. At 25°C, P. marneffei grows as filamentous multinucleate hyphae and undergoes asexual development, producing uninucleate spores. At 37°C, it forms uninucleate yeast cells which divide by fission. We have cloned a gene encoding a G{alpha} subunit of a heterotrimeric G protein from P. marneffei named gasA with high similarity to fadA in Aspergillus nidulans. Through the characterization of a {Delta}gasA strain and mutants carrying a dominant activating or a dominant interfering gasA allele, we show that GasA is a key regulator of asexual development but seems to play no role in the regulation of growth. A dominant activating gasA mutant whose mutation results in a G42-to-R change (gasAG42R) does not express brlA, the conidiation-specific regulatory gene, and is locked in vegetative growth, while a dominant interfering gasAG203R mutant shows inappropriate brlA expression and conidiation. Interestingly, the gasA mutants have no apparent defect in dimorphic switching or yeast-like growth at 37°C. Growth tests on dibutyryl cyclic AMP (dbcAMP) and theophylline suggest that a cAMP-protein kinase A cascade may be involved in the GasA signaling pathway.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Genetics, University of Melbourne, 3010 Victoria, Australia. Phone: 61 3 8344 6239 or 61 3 8344 5140. Fax: 61 3 8344 5139. E-mail: mjhynes{at}unimelb.edu.au.

Eukaryotic Cell, June 2002, p. 440-447, Vol. 1, No. 3
1535-9778/02/$04.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/EC.1.3.440-447.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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