Conidium formation and germination inNeurospora crassa: Glutamic acid metabolism

In order to assess the role of the large (200 μmol/g) pool of glutamic acid normally found in wild-typeNeurospora crassa conidia, the levels of glutamic acid and other amino acids were manipulated by employing a strain blocked in glutamate synthesis. The double mutant strainen(am)-2;am, which has a lesion in NADP-glutamate dehydrogenase (am) and is auxotrophic for glutamate, was employed in order to obtain conidia with a decreased level of glutamic acid. When cultures of this strain were grown in the presence of 50 or 20 mM glutamate as sole nitrogen source, conidia were obtained with a glutamate pool of 97 and 47 μmole/g, respectively, which represents approximately 57 and 28% of the control values obtained from a prototrophic strain. These observations are interpreted to indicate that conidiation can occur even without the accumulation of the entire pool of glutamate in the conidia. However, when conidia of this double mutant strain were incubated in a minimal medium lacking glutamate, germ tube formation was greatly delayed. Germ tube formation was normal in the presence of glutamate or alanine. During germination of conidia in minimal medium, the levels of glutamate, glutamine, aspartic acid, and γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) were measured at different times. The results obtained support the view that glutamic acid was catabolized through the GABA pathway during the very early stages of germination.