Molecular cloning of theCRM1 gene fromCandida albicans

✍ Scribed by Raymond, Martine; Dignard, Daniel; Alarco, Anne-Marie; Clark, Karen L.; Weber, Sandra; Whiteway, Malcolm; Leberer, Ekkehard; Thomas, David Y.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 316 KB
• Volume: 16
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0749-503X
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0061(200004)16:6<531::aid-yea543>3.0.co;2-j

✦ Synopsis

In a screen for Candida albicans genes capable of supressing a ste20Delta mutation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a homologue of the exportin-encoding gene CRM1 was isolated. The CaCRM1 gene codes for a protein of 1079 amino acids with a predicted molecular weight of 124 029 and isoelectric point of 5.04. Crm1p from C. albicans displays significant amino acid sequence homology with Crm1p from Saccharomyces cerevisiae (65% identity, 74% similarity), Schizosaccharomyces pombe (55% identity, 66% similarity), Caenorhabditis elegans (45% identity, 57% similarity), and Homo sapiens (48% identity, 59% similarity). Interestingly, CaCRM1 encodes a threonine rather than a cysteine at position 533 in the conserved central region, suggesting that CaCrm1p is leptomycin B-insensitive, like S. cerevisiae Crm1p. CaCRM1 on a high copy vector can complement a thermosensitive allele of CRM1 (xpo1-1) in S. cerevisiae, showing that CaCrm1p and S. cerevisiae Crm1p are functionally conserved. Southern blot analysis suggests that CaCRM1 is present at a single locus within the C. albicans genome. The nucleotide sequence of the CaCRM1 gene has been deposited at GenBank under Accession No. AF178855.