Analysis of 5′-upstream non-coding region of FI-carboxymethyl cellulase gene from Aspergillus aculeatus

The 5′-upstream non-coding region of an FI-carboxymethyl cellulase (CMCase) gene of Aspergillus aculeatus No. F-50 was obtained and sequenced up to −777 nucleotide in pCMG23. The 5′-upstream region of different lengths were constructed and fused to a reporter gene (Escherichia coli lacZ) in pAN923-42BD, and the resulted constructs were introduced into the A. nidulans. The β-galactosidase activities of the transformant with 5′-upstream fragment of larger than 319 bp were expressed by the induction, but that of 109 bp drastically decreased to the basal level. This suggests that the region between −109 and −319 of the 5′-upstream non-coding region is involved in the regulation of the FI-CMCase expression.