The MADS box protein MCM1 controls diverse developmental processes and is essential for fruiting body formation in the homothallic ascomycete Sordaria macrospora. MADS box proteins derive their regulatory specificity from a wide range of different protein interactions. We have recently shown that the S. macrospora MCM1 is able to interact with the alpha-domain mating-type protein SMTA-1. To fur...

SmtB is a member of a family of repressors which dissociate from DNA in the presence of metals; Zn2+ being the most potent inducer of metallothionein gene (smtA) transcription in vivo. In Synechococcus PCC 7942 cells devoid of chromosomal smtB, four plasmid-encoded mutants of SmtB (C61S, T11S/C14S, C121S and H105R/H106R) repressed lacZ expression driven by the smtA operator-promoter. Gel retard...

Metal-responsive transcription factors play a crucial role in the metal ion homeostasis with both cellular metabolism and environmental metal availability. In present work, we studied structural and evolutionary features of a transcription repressor, SmtB from freshwater Synechococcus sp. PCC 7942 and its homologs from other cyanobacteria in detail. We mined putative SmtB-like zinc sensors from...

Synechococcus sp. WH 8102 is a motile marine cyanobacterium isolated originally from the Sargasso Sea. To test the response of this organism to cadmium (Cd), generally considered a toxin, cultures were grown in a matrix of high and low zinc (Zn) and phosphate (PO4 (3-)) and were then exposed to an addition of 4.4 pM free Cd(2+) at mid-log phase and harvested after 24 h. Whereas Zn and PO4 (3-) ...

MADS box transcription factors control diverse developmental processes in plants, metazoans, and fungi. To analyze the involvement of MADS box proteins in fruiting body development of filamentous ascomycetes, we isolated the mcm1 gene from the homothallic ascomycete Sordaria macrospora, which encodes a putative homologue of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae MADS box protein Mcm1p. Deletion of the S....

A self-luminescent bioreporter strain of the unicellular cyanobacterium Synechococcus sp. PCC 7942 was constructed by fusing the promoter region of the smt locus (encoding the transcriptional repressor SmtB and the metallothionein SmtA) to luxCDABE from Photorhabdus luminescens; the sensor smtB gene controlling the expression of smtA was cloned in the same vector. The bioreporter performance wa...