@article {1457, title = {A pleiotropic drug resistance transporter is involved in reduced sensitivity to multiple fungicide classes in Sclerotinia homoeocarpa (F.T. Bennett).}, journal = {Mol Plant Pathol}, volume = {16}, year = {2015}, month = {2015 Apr}, pages = {251-61}, abstract = {

Dollar spot, caused by Sclerotinia homoeocarpa, is a prevalent turfgrass disease, and the fungus exhibits widespread fungicide resistance in North America. In a previous study, an ABC-G transporter, ShatrD, was associated with practical field resistance to demethylation inhibitor (DMI) fungicides. Mining of ABC-G transporters, also known as pleiotropic drug resistance (PDR) transporters, from RNA-Seq data gave an assortment of transcripts, several with high sequence similarity to functionally characterized transporters from Botrytis cinerea, and others with closest blastx hits from Aspergillus and Monilinia. In addition to ShatrD, another PDR transporter showed significant over-expression in replicated RNA-Seq data, and in a collection of field-resistant isolates, as measured by quantitative polymerase chain reaction. These isolates also showed reduced sensitivity to unrelated fungicide classes. Using a yeast complementation system, we sought to test the hypothesis that this PDR transporter effluxes DMI as well as chemically unrelated fungicides. The transporter (ShPDR1) was cloned into the Gal1 expression vector and transformed into a yeast PDR transporter deletion mutant, AD12345678. Complementation assays indicated that ShPDR1 complemented the mutant in the presence of propiconazole (DMI), iprodione (dicarboximide) and boscalid (SDHI, succinate dehydrogenase inhibitor). Our results indicate that the over-expression of ShPDR1 is correlated with practical field resistance to DMI fungicides and reduced sensitivity to dicarboximide and SDHI fungicides. These findings highlight the potential for the eventual development of a multidrug resistance phenotype in this pathogen. In addition, this study presents a pipeline for the discovery and validation of fungicide resistance genes using de\ novo next-generation sequencing and molecular biology techniques in an unsequenced plant pathogenic fungus.

}, issn = {1364-3703}, doi = {10.1111/mpp.12174}, author = {Sang, Hyunkyu and Hulvey, Jon and Popko, James T and Lopes, John and Swaminathan, Aishwarya and Chang, Taehyun and Jung, Geunhwa} } @article {1458, title = {Transcription regulation of a yeast gene from a downstream location.}, journal = {J Mol Biol}, volume = {425}, year = {2013}, month = {2013 Feb 8}, pages = {457-65}, abstract = {

Mechanisms for coregulation of transcription of tandem genes in yeast remain largely speculative. This study focused on inositol-mediated regulation of the tandem gene pair SNA3-INO1. While the pattern of regulation of these two genes was similar, results showed that intermediate levels of inositol repressed INO1 and induced SNA3. Results also showed that inositol-mediated regulation of the SNA3 gene was not a function of its promoter but occurred from factors within the SNA3-INO1 intergenic region. The basic helix-loop-helix proteins, Ino2p and Ino4p, mediated this regulation through the upstream activation sequence (UAS)(INO) (E-box) sequences in the intergenic region. These results provide a model for studying coregulation of yeast tandem genes. This is especially significant given that many tandem gene pairs in yeast are coregulated even though context-specific UAS sequences are known only for one gene in the pair.

}, keywords = {Gene Expression Regulation, Fungal, Inositol, Membrane Proteins, Myo-Inositol-1-Phosphate Synthase, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins, Transcription, Genetic}, issn = {1089-8638}, doi = {10.1016/j.jmb.2012.11.018}, author = {Shetty, Ameet and Swaminathan, Aishwarya and Lopes, John M} } @article {32, title = {Transcription regulation of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae PHO5 gene by the Ino2p and Ino4p basic helix-loop-helix proteins.}, journal = {Mol Microbiol}, volume = {83}, year = {2012}, month = {2012 Jan}, pages = {395-407}, abstract = {

The Saccharomyces cerevisiae PHO5 gene product accounts for a majority of the acid phosphatase activity. Its expression is induced by the basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) protein, Pho4p, in response to phosphate depletion. Pho4p binds predominantly to two UAS elements (UASp1 at -356 and UASp2 at -247) in the PHO5 promoter. Previous studies from our lab have shown cross-regulation of different biological processes by bHLH proteins. This study tested the ability of all yeast bHLH proteins to regulate PHO5 expression and identified inositol-mediated regulation via the Ino2p/Ino4p bHLH proteins. Ino2p/Ino4p are known regulators of phospholipid biosynthetic genes. Genetic epistasis experiments showed that regulation by inositol required a third UAS site (UASp3 at -194). ChIP assays showed that Ino2p:Ino4p bind the PHO5 promoter and that this binding is dependent on Pho4p binding. These results demonstrate that phospholipid biosynthesis is co-ordinated with phosphate utilization via the bHLH proteins.

}, keywords = {Acid Phosphatase, Basic Helix-Loop-Helix Transcription Factors, Chromatin Immunoprecipitation, DNA, Fungal, Enhancer Elements, Genetic, Gene Expression Regulation, Fungal, Inositol, Models, Biological, Phospholipids, Promoter Regions, Genetic, Protein Binding, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins, Transcription Factors, Transcription, Genetic}, issn = {1365-2958}, doi = {10.1111/j.1365-2958.2011.07941.x}, author = {He, Ying and Swaminathan, Aishwarya and Lopes, John M} }