BACKGROUND Hypocrea jecorina is the sexual form of the industrial workhorse fungus Trichoderma reesei that secretes cellulases and hemicellulases to degrade lignocellulosic biomass into simple sugars, such as glucose and xylose. H. jecorina CBS999.97 is the only T. reesei wild isolate strain that is sexually competent in laboratory conditions. It undergoes a heterothallic reproductive cycle and...

Schizosaccharomyces pombe cells can switch between two mating types, plus (P) and minus (M). The change in cell type occurs due to a replication-coupled recombination event that transfers genetic information from one of the silent-donor loci, mat2P or mat3M, into the expressed mating-type determining mat1 locus. The mat1 locus can as a consequence contain DNA encoding either P or M information....

Yeast mating type is determined by the genotype at the mating type locus (MAT). In homothallic (self-fertile) Saccharomycotina such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Kluveromyces lactis, high-efficiency switching between a and α mating types enables mating. Two silent mating type cassettes, in addition to an active MAT locus, are essential components of the mating type switching mechanism. In thi...

The relevance of serine 5 phosphorylation of RNA polymerase II carboxy-terminal domain during initiation has been difficult to determine in mammalian cells as no general in vivo Ser5 kinase has been identified. Here, we demonstrate that deletion of the TFIIH kinase subunit Mat1 in mouse fibroblasts leads to dramatically reduced Pol II Ser5 phosphorylation. This is associated with defective capp...

The fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe switches mating type by transposition of a copy of DNA derived from either of the two storage cassettes, mat2 -P and mat3 -M, into the expression locus, mat1 . The recombinational event of switching is initiated by a double-stranded DNA break present in approximately 20% of the molecules at mat1 . Fifty-three mutants defective in switching of mating t...

The fungal phylum Ascomycota comprises a large proportion of species with no known sexual stage, despite high genetic variability in field populations. One such asexual species, Aspergillus parasiticus, is a potent producer of carcinogenic and hepatotoxic aflatoxins, polyketide-derived secondary metabolites that contaminate a wide variety of agricultural crops. In this study, individuals of A. ...

Rice false smut disease is caused by Ustilaginoidea virens, an ascomycetous fungi. Thirty isolates of U. virens showed well defined colonies on potato sucrose medium (PSA). The maximum colony diameter was found to be 85.68 mm with a growth rate 2.85 in the UV23 isolate and minimum 10.14 0.33 mm, which observed UV15 isolate. However, thirty exhibit various cultural morphological characteristics ...

The cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK)-activating kinase CAK has been proposed to function in the control of cell cycle progression, DNA repair and RNA polymerase II (pol II) transcription. Most CAK exists as complexes of three subunits: CDK7, cyclin H (CycH) and MAT1. This tripartite CAK occurs in a free form and in association with 'core' TFIIH, which functions in both pol II transcription and DNA...

Recent evidence suggests that Paracoccidioides species have the potential to undergo sexual reproduction, although no sexual cycle has been identified either in nature or under laboratory conditions. In the present work we detected low expression levels of the heterothallic MAT loci genes MAT1-1 and MAT1-2, the α-pheromone (PBα) gene, and the α- and a-pheromone receptor (PREB and PREA) genes in...