cDNA sequence and deduced amino acid sequence of a fungal stress protein induced in Rhizopus nigricans by steroids.

cDNA clone was isolated from lambdagt11 library prepared from Rhizopus nigricans after growing the fungus in the presence of progesterone. Northern blot analysis of total RNA showed that expression of corresponding mRNA was up-regulated in R. nigricans after treatment with different steroids and after exposure of the fungus to heat shock or osmotic stress. Sequence analysis revealed an open reading frame for a 364-amino-acid polypeptide. The predicted amino acid sequence exhibited significant similarity to several sugar epimerases in two domains common to these enzymes. Our results suggest that the analyzed cDNA is coding for a fungal stress inducible protein belonging to sugar epimerases.