Analysis of expressed sequence tags from the fungus Aspergillus oryzae cultured under different conditions.

We performed random sequencing of cDNAs from nine biologically or industrially important cultures of the industrially valuable fungus Aspergillus oryzae to obtain expressed sequence tags (ESTs). Consequently, 21 446 raw ESTs were accumulated and subsequently assembled to 7589 non-redundant consensus sequences (contigs). Among all contigs, 5491 (72.

Molecular cloning and characterization of a transcriptional activator gene, amyR, involved in the amylolytic gene expression in Aspergillus oryzae.

A gene, designated amyR, coding for a transcriptional activator involved in amylolytic gene expression has been cloned from Aspergillus oryzae by screening for a clone that enabled to reverse the reduced expression of the alpha-amylase gene (amyB) promoter. amyR encodes 604 amino acid residues of a putative DNA-binding protein carrying a zinc binuclear cluster motif (Zn(II)2Cys6) belonging to the GAL4 family of transcription factors. The amyR gene disruptants showed a significant restricted growth on starch medium and produced little of the amylolytic enzymes including alpha-amylase and glucoamylase compared with a non-disruptant, indicating that amyR is a transcriptional activator gene involved in starch/maltose-induced efficient expression of the amylolytic genes in A.