Isolation and expression of the acetate-inducible isocitrate lyase gene (acu-3) from Neurospora crassa: evidence for a second constitutive isozyme.

Heterologous hybridisation of the Aspergillus nidulans structural gene for isocitrate lyase (acuD) to a lambda genomic library of Neurospora crassa identified a recombinant phage containing the hybridising sequence on an internal 9 kb EcoRI fragment. A restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) enabled the fragment to be assigned to linkage group V (LG V), the location of the acetate-inducible isocitrate lyase, acu-3 of Neurospora. Functional ectopic complementation by co-transformation of an am-, acu- double mutant using independent plasmid clones, carrying the entire 9 kb EcoRI fragment (pICLG1) and the selectable marker am+ (NADP-glutamate dehydrogenase), demonstrated that the clone contains the entire acetate-inducible transcription unit. However, Northern analysis revealed two species of mRNA, only one of which was inducible on acetate. Native polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis separated two iso-enzymic activities, again only one of which was acetate-inducible and deficient in acu-3- mutants. Further hybridisation of the acu-3 gene probe to an electrophoretic karyotype of Neurospora crassa identified sequences in an additional linkage group as well as in LG V, as anticipated. The isozymes are therefore sequence-related.