Convergent and divergent roles of the glucose-responsive kinase SNF4 in .

The sucrose non-fermenting 1 () complex is a heterotrimeric protein kinase complex that is an ortholog of the mammalian AMPK complex and is evolutionally conserved in most eukaryotes. This complex contains a catalytic subunit (Snf1), a regulatory subunit (Snf4) and a scaffolding subunit (Sip1/Sip2/Gal73) in budding yeast. Although the function of AMPK has been well studied in and , the role of AMPK in has never been investigated. In this study, we focused on in as this fungus cannot produce a mutant. We demonstrated that shares similar roles in glucose derepression and is necessary for cell wall integrity and virulence. The expression of both and was significantly induced when glucose was limited. Furthermore, strains exhibited high sensitivity to many surface-perturbing agents because the strains contained lower levels of glucan, chitin and mannan. Interestingly, in contrast to and , exhibited phenotypes for cell aggregation and pseudohypha production. These data indicate that performs convergent and divergent roles in and possibly other unknown roles in the AMPK pathway.