Mellado E, Specht C A, Robbins P W, Holden D W
Department of Infectious Diseases and Bacteriology, Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, London, UK.
FEMS Microbiol Lett. 1996 Sep 15;143(1):69-76. doi: 10.1111/j.1574-6968.1996.tb08463.x.
A chitin synthase-like gene (chsD) was isolated from an Aspergillus fumigatus genomic DNA library. Comparisons with the predicted amino acid sequence from chsD reveals low but significant similarity to chitin synthases, to other N-acetylglucosaminyltransferases (NodC from Rhizopus spp., HasA from Streptococcus spp. and DG42 from vertebrates. A chsD- mutant strain constructed by gene disruption has a 20% reduction in total mycelial chitin content; however, no differences between the wild-type strain and the chsD- strain were found with respect to morphology, chitin synthase activity or virulence in a neutropenic murine model of aspergillosis. The results show that the chsD product has an important but inessential role in the synthesis of chitin in A. fumigatus.
从烟曲霉基因组DNA文库中分离出一个几丁质合酶样基因（chsD）。将chsD预测的氨基酸序列进行比较，发现其与几丁质合酶、其他N-乙酰葡糖胺基转移酶（根霉属的NodC、链球菌属的HasA和脊椎动物的DG42）有低但显著的相似性。通过基因敲除构建的chsD突变菌株，其总菌丝几丁质含量降低了20%；然而，在烟曲霉病的中性粒细胞减少小鼠模型中，野生型菌株和chsD菌株在形态、几丁质合酶活性或毒力方面未发现差异。结果表明，chsD产物在烟曲霉几丁质合成中具有重要但非必需的作用。
