Activation of the cyclin-dependent kinases to promote cell cycle progression requires their association with cyclins as well as phosphorylation of a threonine (residue 161 in human p34cdc2). This phosphorylation is carried out by CAK, the Cdk-activating kinase. We have purified and cloned CAK from S. cerevisiae. Unlike CAKs from other organisms, Cak1p is active as a monomer, has full activity w...

Mutants defective in various steps of the sexual cycle have been isolated from homothallic strains of Schizosaccharomyces pombe by BRESCH, MULLER and EGEL (1968). These mutants include heterothallic h+ and hstrains. We have isolated additional h+ and hmutants from homothallic strains. Those mutants which are due to mutations in the mating-type region were analyzed in detail. Our results show th...

Abstract Cell-to-cell fusion is a fundamental biological process across the tree of life. In filamentous fungi, somatic (or anastomosis) required for normal development their syncytial hyphal networks, and it can initiate non-sexual genetic exchange processes, such as horizontal transfer parasexual cycle. Although these could be important drivers evolution asexual this remains largely unexplore...

Aspergillus bombycis was first isolated from silkworm frass in Japan. It has been reportedly misidentified as A. nomius due to their macro-morphological and chemotype similarities. We sequenced the genome of the A. bombycis Type strain and found it to be comparable in size (37 Mb), as well as in numbers of predicted genes (12,266), to other sequenced Aspergilli. The aflatoxin gene cluster in th...

One of the major problems in strawberry production is difficulty in diagnosis of anthracnose caused by Colletotrichum acutatum or Glomerella cingulata in latent infection stage. We here developed a diagnostic tool for the latent infection consisting of initial culturing of fungi, DNA extraction, synthesis of PCR-amplified probes and microtube hybridization (MTH) using a macroarray. The initial ...

On smallholder farms in the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains in Nepal, fungi of the Fusarium graminearum clade cause Gibberella ear rot of maize and contamination with the 8-ketotrichothecenes nivalenol and deoxynivalenol. Previous DNA marker analyses of the F. graminearum clade from maize in Nepal found a high level of genetic diversity but were limited in detail or scope. The present stud...