Regulation of amino acid utilization in Neurospora crassa: effect of nmr-1 and ms-5 mutations

The effect of the nmr-1 and ms-5 mutations, which lead to insensitivity to glutamine-mediated nitrogen metabolite repression, was examined with respect to extracellular deaminase production by Neurospora crassa. Deaminase production normally requires nitrogen limitation, but these mutations eliminated this requirement and allowed production of deaminase activity under nitrogen metabolite repressing conditions. Demonstration of normal glutamine transport by both strains eliminated the possibility that these mutations exerted their effects through repressor exclusion. We have proposed a new working model for nitrogen regulation in Neurospora based on the findings that these mutations affected a nitrogen-regulated activity in addition to those activities originally reported and that the mutations are genetically very closely linked and likely allelic.