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γ-Glutamyl transpeptidase (GgtA) of Aspergillus nidulans is not necessary for bulk degradation of glutathione

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Abstract

Aspergillus nidulans exhibited high γ-glutamyl transpeptidase (γGT) activity in both carbon-starved and carbon-limited cultures. Glucose repressed, but casein peptone increased γGT production. Null mutation of creA did not influence γGT formation, but the functional meaB was necessary for the γGT induction. Deletion of the AN10444 gene (ggtA) completely eliminated the γGT activity, and the mRNA levels of ggtA showed strong correlation with the observed γGT activities. While ggtA does not contain a canonical signal sequence, the γGT activity was detectable both in the fermentation broth and in the hyphae. Deletion of the ggtA gene did not prevent the depletion of glutathione observed in carbon-starved and carbon-limited cultures. Addition of casein peptone to carbon-starved cultures lowered the formation of reactive species (RS). Deletion of ggtA could hinder this decrease and resulted in elevated RS formation. This effect of γGT on redox homeostasis may explain the reduced cleistothecia formation of ΔggtA strains in surface cultures.

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Acknowledgments

This project was supported financially by the Hungarian Research Found OTKA-K100464 and TÁMOP-4.2.2.A-11/1/KONV-2012-0045 project, which is co-financed by the European Union and the European Social Fund. The work at UW-Madison was supported by the Intelligent Synthetic Biology Center of Global Frontier Project (2011-0031955) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Republic of Korea. Protein identification was carried out at the BMBI Proteomics Core Facility, University of Debrecen, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and was supported in part by KMA 0149/3.0 Grants from the Research Fund Management and Research Exploitation.

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  1. Nak-Jung Kwon

    Present address: Macrogen Korea, Seoul, Republic of Korea

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biotechnology and Microbiology, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Debrecen, Egyetem tér 1, Debrecen, H4032, Hungary

    Zsolt Spitzmüller, Melinda Szilágyi, Viktória Tóth, István Pócsi & Tamás Emri

  2. Departments of Bacteriology and Genetics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA

    Nak-Jung Kwon & Jae-Hyuk Yu

  3. Department of Human Genetics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary

    Judit Keserű

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  1. Zsolt Spitzmüller
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Correspondence to Tamás Emri.

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Spitzmüller, Z., Kwon, NJ., Szilágyi, M. et al. γ-Glutamyl transpeptidase (GgtA) of Aspergillus nidulans is not necessary for bulk degradation of glutathione. Arch Microbiol 197, 285–297 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-014-1057-0

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