title: White collar-1, a central regulator of blue light responses in Neurospora, is a zinc finger protein.
abstract: The Neurospora crassa blind mutant white collar-1 (wc-1) is pleiotropically defective in all blue light-induced phenomena, establishing a role for the wc-1 gene product in the signal transduction pathway. We report the cloning of the wc-1 gene isolated by chromosome walking and mutant complementation. The elucidation of the wc-1 gene product provides a key piece of the blue light signal transduction puzzle. The wc-1 gene encodes a 125 kDa protein whose encoded motifs include a single class four, zinc finger DNA binding domain and a glutamine-rich putative transcription activation domain. We demonstrate that the wc-1 zinc finger domain, expressed in Escherichia coli, is able to bind specifically to the promoter of a blue light-regulated gene of Neurospora using an in vitro gel retardation assay. Furthermore, we show that wc-1 gene expression is autoregulated and is transcriptionally induced by blue light irradiation.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Genetica e Biologia Molecolare, Centro di Studio per gli Acidi Nucleici, University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ballario
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vittorioso
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Magrelli
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Talora
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cabibbo
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Macino
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001483:Base Sequence; D001665:Binding Sites / Q000235:genetics; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D016386:Chromosome Walking; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D004271:DNA, Fungal / Q000235:genetics; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics; D005656:Fungal Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D005800:Genes, Fungal; D005816:Genetic Complementation Test; D008027:Light; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009154:Mutation; D009492:Neurospora crassa / Q000235:genetics* / Q000528:radiation effects*; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D015398:Signal Transduction; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000235:genetics; D016335:Zinc Fingers / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D004271:DNA, Fungal; D005656:Fungal Proteins; D014157:Transcription Factors