Cloning of a novel gene encoding a C2H2 zinc finger protein that alleviates sensitivity to abiotic stresses in Aspergillus nidulans

Abstract

We report the cloning and sequencing of a DNA fragment encoding a putative C2H2 zinc finger protein from Aspergillus nidulans. The gene was isolated by complementation cloning of a salt sensitive phenotype of the A. nidulans sltAl mutant. A 3.8 kb Pst I fragment that restored wild type salt tolerance contained one large open reading frame of 2202 bp. The predicted protein (StzA) from this reading frame comprises 698 amino acids and has three Zinc fingers along with a putative transcriptional activation domain rich in acidic amino acids. The corresponding sequence from a sltAl mutant contains a premature STOP codon resulting in loss of the putative transcriptional activator in the C-terminal region. The Zinc fingers show conserved motifs with a number of transcription factors including CreA from A. nidulans and the human Wilm's tumour susceptibility protein WT-1.