Summary
In Aspergillus nidulans, mutations, designated areAr, can result in the inability to utilise a wide variety of nitrogen sources including amino acids, purines, amides, nitrate, and nitrite, whilst not affecting growth on ammonium. Other allelic areA mutations, designated areAd, lead to derepression of one or more activities which are ammonium repressible in wild type (areA+) strains, whilst not affecting their inducibility. Various areA mutations exhibit a wide variety of phenotypes: areAr alleles can be temperature sensitive on some nitrogen sources while not on others, and different alleles can be temperature sensitive for utilisation of different nitrogen sources. areAd alleles can be derepressed for one ammonium-repressible activity, be normally repressible for another, and lead to abnormally low levels for a third. Once again each areAd allele has its own highly specific phenotype. The inability of areAr strains to utilise most nitrogen sources is paralleled by low activities of certain ammonium-repressible enzymes. areAr mutations appear to be epistatic to some but not all regulatory mutations leading to constitutive synthesis of inducible enzymes and also epistatic to gdhA mutations which lead both to loss of NADP-linked glutamate dehydrogenase and to derepression of ammonium-repressible activities.
areAr mutations do not interfere with repair of a large number of auxotrophies in double mutants. Furthermore, although areAr mutations prevent utilisation of L-arginine, L-ornithine, and L-α-amino-n-butyrate as nitrogen sources, they do not prevent the metabolism of these compounds necessary for repairing auxotrophies for proline and isoleucine in the appropriate double mutants. Utilisation of acetamide and most amino acids as carbon or carbon and nitrogen sources is unaffected by areAr mutations, and areAr strains are able to utilise acetamide and L-proline (but not other amino acids) as nitrogen sources in the presence of non-catabolite-repressing carbon sources such as L-arabinose, glycerol, melibiose, and lactose. Suppressor mutations, designated creAd, probably leading to loss of carbon catabolite repression, allow utilisation of acetamide and proline as nitrogen sources in areAr double mutants in the presence of carbon catabolite-repressing carbon sources. creAd mutations allow ethanol to serve as a source of acetate for pyruvate dehydrogenaseless (pdhA) strains in the presence of carbon catabolite-repressing carbon sources, whereas pdhA single mutants respond to ethanol as sole carbon source only in the presence of non-carbon catabolite-repressing carbon sources. Specific suppressor mutations, designated amd d and prn d, allow utilisation of acetamide or proline, respectively, in areAr double mutants.
The areA locus can be interpreted as specifying a protein which is capable of (and in most cases essential for) allowing the synthesis of a number of enzymes of nitrogen metabolism but which cannot function in the presence of ammonium (i.e., as specifying a positive regulatory element which mediates ammonium repression) although the possibility that the areA product also plays a negative regulatory role cannot at present be ruled out.
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Arst, H.N., Cove, D.J. Nitrogen metabolite repression in Aspergillus nidulans . Molec. gen. Genet. 126, 111–141 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00330988
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00330988