title: Involvement of a novel gene, zyg1, in zygote formation of Dictyostelium mucoroides.
abstract: A gene, zyg1, was isolated by differential screening from Dictyostelium mucoroides-7 (Dm7) cells, as one preferentially expressed during their sexual development. The zyg1 gene encodes for a novel protein (ZYG1; deduced Mr 29.4 x 10(3)) consisting of 268 amino acids. Although the ZYG1 protein has predicted PKC phosphorylation sites, it has neither transmembrane domains nor specified signal sequences. The expression of zyg1 was initiated after 2 h of starvation and reached its maximum level at 8 h under submerged conditions. The expression pattern is quite similar to the temporal change of zygote formation during sexual development (macrocyst formation) with 1 h of precedence. The zyg1 mRNA in Dm7 cells developing on agar was retained until zygotes were formed. Zyg1-overexpressing cells derived from Dm7 cells eventually formed many loose mounds, in which giant cells were surrounded by normal-sized cells, in addition to mature macrocysts even under the conditions favouring for asexual sorocarp formation. Giant cells were found by DAPI-staining to be multinucleate, possibly because of the precocious overexpression of zyg1 mRNA. Western blottings using a specific antibody raised against the oligopeptide near the C-terminal region of ZYG1 also showed that ZYG1 was actually over-produced in the zyg1-overexpressing cells. From these results, it is evident that the zyg1 gene has an essential role in zygote formation by inducing sexual cell fusion.
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental Biology and Neurosciences, Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University, Aoba, Sendai 980-8578, Japan. aiamagai@mail.cc.tohoku.ac.jp
authors.forename: Aiko
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Amagai
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D004023:Dictyostelium / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology; D017125:Genes, Protozoan; D005822:Genetic Vectors; D015726:Giant Cells / Q000502:physiology; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D011494:Protein Kinases / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D015800:Protozoan Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics; D011994:Recombinant Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D014158:Transcription, Genetic; D015053:Zygote / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D015800:Protozoan Proteins; D012333:RNA, Messenger; D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D011494:Protein Kinases