Protein factors in Blastocladiella emersonii cell extracts recognize similar sequence elements in the promoters of the genes encoding cAMP-dependent protein kinase subunits.

Blastocladiella emersonii contains a single cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA), which is similar to the mammalian type II isoforms. Its activity is regulated during development by changes in the levels of the catalytic (C) and regulatory (R) subunits, which occur in parallel with changes in levels of the corresponding mRNAs, suggesting coordinate transcriptional control of the expression of both subunits. Both R and C mRNA levels are low in vegetative cells, rise sharply during sporulation and decrease to basal levels again after germination. To investigate sequence elements common to both Blastocladiella R and C gene promoters, which might be involved in the coordinate regulation of these genes, their 5'-flanking regions were analyzed by gel mobility shift and DNase I footprinting assays. We determined that different DNA-protein complexes are generated when fragments of the R and C gene promoters are incubated with extracts from cells expressing (sporulating cells) or not expressing (vegetative cells) both subunits, and competition experiments suggested that similar protein factors bind to both promoters. DNase I footprinting experiments have indicated that a sequence common to both R and C promoters, and similar to mammalian E-boxes, binds factors present in extracts from vegetative and sporulating cells, whereas sequences flanking the E-boxes in both promoters showed a change in the pattern of DNase I digestion only when the vegetative cell extract was used. This result suggests that the composition of the protein complexes binding to these regions changes during sporulation.