Spontaneous circadian rhythms in a cold-adapted natural isolate of Aureobasidium pullulans

D. LORENA FRANCO,; PAULO CANESA; NICOLAS BELLORA; SEBASTIAN RISAU GUSMAN; CONSUELO OLIVARES-YAÑEZ; RODRIGO PÉREZ-LARA; DIEGO LIBKIND; LUIS LARRONDO; LUCIANO MARPEGAN

Scientific Reports

Nature Publishing Group

Año: 2017

2045-2322

Circadian systemsenable organisms to synchronize their physiology to daily and seasonal environmentalchanges relying on endogenous pacemakers that oscillate with a period close to24 h even in the absence of external timing cues. The oscillations are achievedby intracellular transcriptional/translational feedback loops thoroughly characterized for many organisms, but still little is known aboutthe presence and characteristics of circadian clocks in fungi other than Neurospora crassa. We sought tocharacterize the circadian system of a natural isolate of Aureobasidium pullulans, a cold-adapted yeast bearing great biotechnologicalpotential.A. pullulans formed daily concentric rings that were synchronized bylight/dark cycles and were also formed in constant darkness with a period of 24.5h. Moreover, these rhythms were temperature compensated, as evidenced byexperiments conducted at temperatures as low as 10 °C. Finally,the expression of clock-essential genes, frequency, white collar-1, whitecollar-2, and vivid was confirmed. Insummary, our results indicate the existence of a functional circadianclock in A. pullulans, capable ofsustaining rhythms at very low temperatures and, based on the presence ofconserved clock-gene homologues, suggest a molecular and functionalrelationship to well-described circadian systems.