Electrical Phenotypes of Calcium Transport Mutant Strains of a Filamentous Fungus, Neurospora crassa

Abstract

ABSTRACT We characterized the electrical phenotypes of mutants with mutations in genes encoding calcium transporters—a mechanosensitive channel homolog ( MscS ), a Ca 2+ /H + exchange protein ( cax ), and Ca 2+ -ATPases ( nca-1 , nca-2 , nca-3 )—as well as those of double mutants (the nca-2 cax , nca-2 nca-3 , and nca-3 cax mutants). The electrical characterization used dual impalements to obtain cable-corrected current-voltage measurements. Only two types of mutants (the MscS mutant; the nca-2 mutant and nca-2 -containing double mutants) exhibited lower resting potentials. For the nca-2 mutant, on the basis of unchanged conductance and cyanide-induced depolarization of the potential, the cause is attenuated H + -ATPase activity. The growth of the nca-2 mutant-containing strains was inhibited by elevated extracellular Ca 2+ levels, indicative of lesions in Ca 2+ homeostasis. However, the net Ca 2+ effluxes of the nca-2 mutant, measured noninvasively with a self-referencing Ca 2+ -selective microelectrode, were similar to those of the wild type. All of the mutants exhibited osmosensitivity similar to that of the wild type (the turgor of the nca-2 mutant was also similar to that of the wild type), suggesting that Ca 2+ signaling does not play a role in osmoregulation. The hyphal tip morphology and tip-localized mitochondria of the nca-2 mutant were similar to those of the wild type, even when the external [Ca 2+ ] was elevated. Thus, although Ca 2+ homeostasis is perturbed in the nca-2 mutant (B. J. Bowman et al., Eukaryot. Cell 10:654–661, 2011), the phenotype does not extend to tip growth or to osmoregulation but is revealed by lower H + -ATPase activity.