Aspergillus niger RhaR, a regulator involved in L-rhamnose release and catabolism

The genome of the filamentous fungus Aspergillus niger is rich in genes encoding pectinases, a broad class of enzymes that have been extensively studied due to their use in industrial applications. The sequencing of the A. niger genome provided more knowledge concerning the individual pectinolytic genes, but relatively little is still known about the regulatory genes involved in pectin degradation. Understanding regulation of the pectinolytic genes provides a tool to optimize the production of pectinases in this industrially important fungus. This study describes the identification and characterization of one of the activators of pectinase-encoding genes, RhaR. Inactivation of the gene encoding this regulator resulted in down-regulation of genes involved in the release and catabolism of L-rhamnose from the pectinolytic substructure rhamnogalacturonan I. We aim to discover differencial expressed genes in A.niger wild type strain N402 and ΔrhaR mutant while growing on rhamnose as carbon source. Biological duplicates were made for both strain at the growth of 2 hours, Affymetrix microarray experiments were performed on these samples.