Eukaryotic initiation factor 5A (eIF-5A) is the only cellular protein known to contain a hypusine residue that is formed by transferring the aminobutyl moiety from spermidine to a specific lysine residue, followed by hydroxylation at the aminobutyl group. A simple PCR-based strategy was developed to obtain a full-length cDNA of Neurospora crassa eIF-5A. The strategy consists of (i) the design o...

Membrane-bound adenylate cyclase in Neurospora crassa is activated by glucagon. Half-maximal effect is observed at hormone concentrations of about 10 nM. After solubilization of the enzyme with Lubrol-PX, the glucagon effect is lost. Incubation of neurospora cells with glucagon leads to a decrease in the activity of glycogen synthetase (EC 2.4.1.11) and to an increase in the activity of glycoge...

Activation of cyclic AMP phosphodiesterase I by brain or Neurospora calmodulin was studied. The stimulation required micromolar concentrations of Ca2+, and it was observed at cyclic AMP concentrations between 0.1 and 500 microM. Activation was blocked by EDTA and some neuroleptic drugs such as chlorpromazine and fluphenazine. These drugs inhibit the elongation of N. crassa wild-type aerial hyph...

The photodynamic effect of polycyclic hydrocarbons was studied in Neurospora crassa and tissue culture cells of the Chinese hamster. The polycyclic hydrocarbons were dissolved in dimethylformamide and added to the treatment solution or medium. Other solvents, such as dimethyl sulfoxide and bovine serum, quenched the photodynamic effect of 3,4-benzpyrene and could not be used. Conidia from a dik...

Cork oak is the second most dominant forest species in Portugal and makes this country the world leader in cork export. Occupational exposure to Chrysonilia sitophila and the Penicillium glabrum complex in cork industry is common, and the latter fungus is associated with suberosis. However, as conventional methods seem to underestimate its presence in occupational environments, the aim of our s...

A new strain of Neurospora crassa which exhibits a rhythm of conidiation when growing along an agar surface in a growth tube is described. The rhythm has been shown to be circadian for it meets the following criteria: A) the period under constant environmental conditions in the dark is about 24 hours (22.7 hours at 25 degrees ); B) the period is relatively temperature-independent (Q(10) is betw...

N Neurospora crassa, as in other ascomycetes with a spreading type of I growth, it has been necessary to obtain genetic data by the laborious method of isolating single ascospores in test tubes, and, in the case of biochemical mutants, transferring each of the cultures thus obtained to various media in order to characterize it (BEADLE 1945). The discovery that sorbose and certain other agents w...

Two newly isolated mutant strains of Neurospora crassa, cpz-1 and cpz-2, were hypersensitive to chlorpromazine with respect to mycelial growth but responded differently to the drug with respect to the circadian conidiation rhythm. In the wild type, chlorpromazine caused shortening of the period length of the conidiation rhythm. Pulse treatment with the drug shifted the phase and inhibited light...

Neurospora crassa, the filamentous fungus possesses widest array of genome defense mechanisms known to any eukaryotic organism, including a process called repeat-induced point mutation (RIP). RIP is a genome defense mechanism that hypermutates repetitive DNA sequences; analogous to genomic imprinting in mammals. As an impact of RIP, Neurospora possesses many fewer genes in multigene families th...