NUCLEOTIDE-SEQUENCE OF THE GENE ENCODING THE PRECURSOR PROTEIN OF PEPSTATIN INSENSITIVE ACID PROTEASE-B, SCYTALIDOPEPSIN-B, FROM SCYTALIDIUM-LIGNICOLUM

A chromosomal DNA of Scytalidium lignicolum was digested with Sau3AI. The digest was self-ligated and amplified by inverse PCR procedure usi ng primers designed based on the nucleotide sequences of up- and down- stream regions of an intron present in the scytalidopepsin B gene. Ana lysis of the nucleotide sequence of PCR product (700 bp) showed that t he enzyme is synthesized as a precursor protein consisting of the prep ro- and mature enzyme regions. The deduced amino acid sequence was hig hly similar to those of aspergillopepsin A and recently reported endot hiapepsins B and C, but quite different from those of pepstatin-insens itive bacterial acid proteases and the pepstatin-sensitive aspartic pr otease family.