The Aspergillus nidulans sulphur regulatory gene sconB encodes a protein with WD40 repeats and an F-box

The Aspergillus nidulans gene sconB, one of the four identified genes controlling sulphur metabolite repression, was cloned and analysed. It encodes a polypeptide of 678 amino acids containing seven WD repeats characteristic of the large WD40 family of eukaryotic regulatory proteins. The SCONB protein has nuclear localisation signals and is very similar to the Neurospora crassa SCON2 and Saccharomyces cerevisiae Met30 proteins, both of which are involved in the regulation of sulphur metabolism. The N. crassa scon-2 gene complements the sconB2 mutation. All three proteins also contain a newly identified motif, the F-box, found in a number of eukaryotic regulatory proteins. This motif is responsible, at least in some cases, for ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis. The sconB transcript is derepressed under sulphur limitation conditions and partly repressed by high methionine.