Molecular cloning of a gene (cfp) encoding the cytoplasmic filament protein P59Nc and its genetic relationship to the snowflake locus of Neurospora crassa.

P59Nc is a 59-kD polypeptide associated with 8-10-nm diameter cellular filaments in normal Neurospora crassa strains. Abnormally sized and shaped bundles of these structures are present in N. crassa strains carrying mutations at the locus sn (snowflake). By using molecular cloning and restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) segregation analysis strategies we show here that sn is not the genetic locus of P59Nc. Several P59Nc cDNAs were cloned from a N. crassa lambda GT11 library after immunoscreening with specific polyclonal anti-P59Nc antibodies. Additional longer cDNAs were obtained from a N. crassa cDNA-lambda ZAP library. When used as probes in Southern blots of total DNA from wild-type strains, multicent-2 (a multiple mutant strain), and snowflake mutants, the P59Nc cDNAs revealed comparable patterns of hybridizing bands for all of the restriction enzymes tested. Analysis of segregation of BclI and ClaI RFLPs, detected in the genomic region of the P59Nc gene (locus cfp: cellular filament polypeptide), among a set of strains designed for RFLP mapping, or among selected progeny of crosses involving a snowflake parent, respectively, indicate that (i) there is in N. crassa a single cfp locus positioned on the right arm of linkage group VII between the locus for and the proximal breakpoint of the translocation T(VII----I)5936; (ii) the sn mutations in the centromere region of chromosome I do not represent translocations of cfp; and (iii) the snowflake mutants possesses a normal copy of the P59Nc gene on their chromosomes VII.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)