Abstract
The cation diffusion facilitator (CDF) family of zinc transporters plays a crucial role in zinc homeostasis in eukaryotes, including fungi. Here, we investigated the cell functions and genetic interactions of CDF zinc transporters zrc-1 and msc-2 in Neurospora crassa. The Δzrc-1 mutant could not grow in a high-zinc environment, indicating that the zinc transporter protein ZRC-1 was essential for growth in high-zinc conditions. However, the deletion of msc-2 did not show any severe phenotypic defects. Furthermore, we studied the genetic interactions of the zinc transporters using the CDF double mutants. Previously, zrg-17 was reported to be critical, where the Δzrg-17 mutant showed defects in both vegetative development and asexual sporulation. Interestingly, the Δmsc-2;Δzrg-17 double mutant showed phenotypes similar to the wild type, and restored the phenotypic defects of the Δzrg-17 mutation. However, the Δzrc-1;Δmsc-2 and Δzrc-1;Δzrg-17 double mutants continue to display phenotypic defects like their parental single mutants. The double mutant Δzrc-1;Δzrg-17 showed severe vegetative growth defects, including slow growth, short aerial hyphae, narrowed septation, and defective asexual sporulation. In addition, aerial hyphae development of the Δzrc-1;Δmsc-2 and Δzrc-1;Δzrg-17 double mutants were reduced under endoplasmic reticulum stress. Thus, this study revealed the cell functions and genetic interactions of zrc-1, msc-2, and zrg-17 for vegetative development and tolerance to stress conditions in N. crassa.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the Fungal Genetics Stock Center (FGSC), Kevin McCluskey, and Aric Wiest for generously waiving charges for some of the strains. We also thank Dr. Anand Tiwari for initial help in this work. SN was financially supported by a Research Fellowship from the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India. We acknowledge the MHRD, IIT Guwahati, Department of Biotechnology (DBT) NER twinning grant BT/PR24473/NER/95/737/2017 to RT, and Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) Start-up grant for Young Scientists, YSS/2014/000174, to AT, for partial financial support.
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Ngiimei D, S., Tamuli, R. CDF family of zinc transporters ZRC-1, MSC-2, and ZRG-17 are involved in survival at high zinc conditions, vegetative development, and cellulase utilization in Neurospora crassa. J Biosci 49, 12 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12038-023-00398-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12038-023-00398-4