Decreased cellulase and xylanase production in the fungus Talaromyces cellulolyticus by disruption of tacA and tctA genes, encoding putative zinc finger transcriptional factors.

Talaromyces cellulolyticus (formerly Acremonium cellulolyticus) is one of the important strains for industrial cellulase production. An understanding of the control of cellulase gene expression in T. cellulolyticus is insufficient because only a few transcriptional factors related to cellulase gene expression have been identified. In the present study, we disrupted seven putative transcription regulator genes that showed similarity with cellulase or hemicellulase regulator genes in other filamentous fungi and investigated whether these genes are related to cellulase and xylanase production. Among the seven genes, five (tclA, tbgA, tlaA, tmcA, tclB2) had a smaller effect on cellulase and xylanase activities when culturing with cellulose. On the other hand, disruption of tacA and tctA, which are respectively homologues of ace1 (repressor of cellulase) and ctf1 (inducer of cutinase), led to a decrease in cellulase and hemicellulase production due to effects at both the enzymatic and transcriptional levels, indicating that tacA and tctA have positive roles in cellulase and xylanase production in T. cellulolyticus. These results suggest that cellulase and xylanase gene regulation in T. cellulolyticus differs from that in other filamentous fungi and imply that unknown transcriptional mechanisms function in T. cellulolyticus.