Identification of as a positive regulator for flor formation in .

Some wild impair the quality of soy sauce through the generation of unpleasant odors induced by the formation of flor. Flor formation in depends on the expression of the gene, which is a homolog of the gene that encodes a cell surface protein in expression in is regulated by multiple pathways. To investigate the regulation of expression in , we created 13 gene knockout mutants (, and ) related to those pathways and examined whether these mutants form flor. Unexpectedly, knockout mutant could only form a very weak flor due to decreased expression, suggesting that acts as a potential activator of flor formation through expression. This result is in contrast to , which acts as a repressor of expression.