The NcZrg-17 gene of Neurospora crassa encodes a cation diffusion facilitator transporter required for vegetative development, tolerance to endoplasmic reticulum stress and cellulose degradation under low zinc conditions

Abstract

The Neurospora crassa gene NcZrg-17 encodes a membrane protein with homology to the cation diffusion facilitator (CDF) family of transporters. We analyzed the phenotypic and functional characteristics of ΔNcZrg-17 and the implications of these characteristics in vivo. The ΔNcZrg-17 mutant showed several phenotypes that are zinc suppressible such as reduced growth rate, short aerial hyphae, increased hyphal branching, early and enhanced conidiation and delayed conidial germination. Furthermore, the NcZrg-17 gene was found to be crucial for survival in the presence of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress inducing chemical agents. In addition, we found that ΔNcZrg-17 mutant is defective in protein secretion on cellulose media under low zinc conditions, pointing towards a physiological role for NcZrg-17 in N. crassa. A gradual and delayed transcriptional upregulation (~ threefold) of NcZrg-17 on exposure to low zinc suggests its role in adaptation to low zinc rather than zinc homeostasis. Together our findings support a function of NcZrg-17 in normal vegetative growth, tolerance to ER stress and degradation of cellulose under low zinc conditions in N. crassa.

DL‐3‐n‐butylphthalide alleviates vascular cognitive impairment by regulating endoplasmic reticulum stress and the Shh/Ptch1 signaling‐pathway in rats

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Regulatory microRNAs and vascular cognitive impairment and dementia

“…Endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS) is a process by which unfolded/misfolded proteins accumulate in the ER after an ER homeostasis disorder 76 . Specific stress conditions such as hypoxia, nutrient deprivation, calcium consumption, and hyperglycemia can trigger ERS 77 .…”

Metabolic engineering of Neurospora crassa for increasing carotenoids synthesis

“…It is non-toxic and is traditionally used for food production in south eastern Asia and is considered safe for other technical applications (Perkins and Davis, 2000) making it a suitable strain for synthetic biology. It also has an added advantage where it can grow on discarded lignocellular biomass for itself secreting cellulose and semi-cellulose degrading enzymes (Collier et al, 2020;Liu et al, 2020), and is more tolerant (Feldman et al, 2019;Tiwari et al, 2018) in active synthesized terpenoidal compounds such as steroidal or triterpenoid saponins which has a potential of reducing future production cost of active terpenoid compounds used in pharmaceutical or functional food industry. Neurosporaxanthin (NX) a carboxylic xanthophyll is the major carotenoid product of N. crassa which is usually accumulated with varying amounts of its neutral carotenoids (NC) (Hornero-Méndez et al, 2018).…”