MOLECULAR-CLONING AND SEQUENCING OF A CHITIN SYNTHASE GENE (CHS2) OF PARACOCCIDIOIDES-BRASILIENSIS

The nucleotide sequence of a chitin synthase gene (CHS2) of the dimorp hic fungal human pathogen Paracoccidioides brasiliensis has been deter mined. The deduced amino acid sequence of Chs2p consists of 1043 resid ues and is highly homologous to other class II fungal chitin synthases . Computational structural analyses suggest very high similarity to ot her fungal chitin synthases with a highly variable region at the cytos olic amino-terminal region which may be related to its possible zymoge nic nature, and the putative catalytic region close to seven membrane- spanning regions at the carboxyl terminus. The nucleotide sequence of CHS2 and its flanking regions has been submitted to GenBank under Acce ssion Number Y09231. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.