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Nitrogen metabolite signalling involves the C‐terminus and the GATA domain of the Aspergillus transcription factor AREA and the 3′ untranslated region of its mRNA.
Author(s) -
Platt A.,
Langdon T.,
Arst H. N.,
Kirk D.,
Tollervey D.,
Sanchez J. M.,
Caddick M. X.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
the embo journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 7.484
H-Index - 392
eISSN - 1460-2075
pISSN - 0261-4189
DOI - 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1996.tb00639.x
Subject(s) - biology , gata transcription factor , transcription factor , untranslated region , three prime untranslated region , transcription (linguistics) , metabolite , messenger rna , microbiology and biotechnology , genetics , biochemistry , promoter , gene expression , gene , linguistics , philosophy
AREA is a GATA transcription factor which mediates nitrogen metabolite repression in Aspergillus nidulans in response to intracellular glutamine levels. We have identified and localized three elements important to modulation of AREA function: a region of 13 residues within the DNA‐binding GATA domain which forms a putative extended loop structure, the 12 C‐terminal residues, and sequences within a 218 nucleotide region of the 3′ UTR. The 12 C‐terminal residues are also required for transcriptional activation at a subset of loci under areA control. Specific deletions within the 3′ UTR and the C‐terminus cause similar levels of derepression and the mutations are additive, implicating two principal signal transduction pathways. The contribution of the 3′ UTR to AREA modulation is effected at the level of transcript stability such that the areA mRNA is at least five times more stable under nitrogen‐derepressing conditions than it is under repressing growth conditions.