A novel 66-kDa stress protein, p66, associated with the process of cyst formation of Physarum polycephalum is a Physarum homologue of a yeast actin-interacting protein, AIP1.

When exposed to various stresses including heat shock, myxoamoebae, growing haploid cells of Physarum polycephalum, show marked morphological changes and consequently become disk-shaped microcysts. We have found that p66 is induced exclusively in the course of microcyst formation and has an actin-binding activity. In this study, we purified p66 to homogeneity and isolated a p66 cDNA. The deduced protein sequence contained 601 amino acids and showed 31% identity to a yeast actin-interacting protein, AIP1. Northern blot analysis revealed that the amount of p66 mRNA was significantly increased by heat shock in myxoamoebae but not in plasmodia. Thus, p66 seems to be a developmentally-expressed stress protein which regulates the rearrangement of actin organization during microcyst formation in P. polycephalum.