Disruption of serine/threonine protein kinase STK-12 increases cellulase expression in Neurospora crassa

In this work, we reported that STK-12 functions as a novel repressor of cellulase expression. The stk-12 disruption strain not only displayed enhanced cellulase production but also retained a steady state, with high expression levels of cellulase genes, for longer than the wild type strain. Conidia of △stk-12 and wild-type (WT) strains were separately inoculated into Avicel medium (1×Vogel's salt, 2% w/v crystalline cellulose) and batch cultured for 5 days. Total RNA from frozen samples was extracted and treated.