Transcription and processing signals in the 3-phosphoglycerate kinase (PGK) gene from Aspergillus nidulans

The 3-phosphoglycerate kinase gene from Aspergillus nidulans contains two 57-bp introns and codes for a 421-amino acid (aa) protein with considerable homology to the Saccharomyces cerevisiae (68%) and mammalian (64%) proteins. Almost total conservation is found in Aspergillus of residues thought to be important to the structure and function of the yeast enzyme, and the introns fall between coding sequences for postulated structures in the N-domain. The strong codon preference found is more similar to that in other filamentous fungi than in yeast. The transcription start point (+1) has been mapped 32 bp upstream from the start codon, and the promoter region contains potential homologies for CAAT (-80 bp) and TATA (-30 bp) sequences, and certain other features common to other highly expressed genes in ascomycetes. There are three major termini 23, 83 and 115 bp beyond the stop codon and two of these are preceded by the polyadenylation consensus sequence and contain potential secondary structure.