Open AccessDefining the role of the polyasparagine repeat domain of the S. cerevisiae transcription factor Azf1p
Author(s) -
Taylor Stewart,
Benjamin E. Wolfe,
Stephen M. Fuchs
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0247285
Subject(s) - transcription factor , saccharomyces cerevisiae , biology , chromatin , gene , genetics , transcription (linguistics) , yeast , microbiology and biotechnology , protein domain , phenotype , function (biology) , computational biology , linguistics , philosophy
Across eukaryotes, homopolymeric repeats of amino acids are enriched in regulatory proteins such as transcription factors and chromatin remodelers. These domains play important roles in signaling, binding, prion formation, and functional phase separation. Azf1p is a prion-forming yeast transcription factor that contains two homorepeat domains, a polyglutamine and a polyasparagine domain. In this work, we report a new phenotype for Azf1p and identify a large set of genes that are regulated by Azf1p during growth in glucose. We show that the polyasparagine (polyN) domain plays a subtle role in transcription but is dispensable for Azf1p localization and prion formation. Genes upregulated upon deletion of the polyN domain are enriched in functions related to carbon metabolism and storage. This domain may therefore be a useful target for engineering yeast strains for fermentation applications and small molecule production. We also report that both the polyasparagine and polyglutamine domains vary in length across strains of S . cerevisiae and propose a model for how this variation may impact protein function.