L-glutamine alteration of gene expression, not of polyphosphate and calcium metabolism, is a key event in arresting fungal sporulation.
Vegetatively growing cells of the coenocytic freshwater mould Achlya developed asexual sporangia and sporulated within 6 h of postransfer to a nutrient-free (starvation) medium. Sporangial development was arrested by the addition of L-glutamine to starving cells. During starvation (minus glutamine), three polyphosphate substances accumulated intracellularly, ATP was rapidly depleted, and a protein of molecular weight 42 000 (presumed to be actin) was actively synthesized, whereas synthesis of the most abundant detergent-soluble protein of molecular weight 83 000 (p83) ceased. In the presence of glutamine, starving cells used up the polyphosphates faster than they were formed. ATP depletion was delayed, cell calcium (Ca) exited rapidly, and synthesis of actin diminished while p83 synthesis continued unabated. Several pyrimidine analogues, including 5-diazouracil (which inhibited pyridimide nucleotide biosynthesis), and inorganic phosphate prevented Ca exit from glutamine-supplemented starving cells. The pyrimidine analogues delayed but did not inhibit sporangial development; however, they did not overcome glutamine suppression of sporangial development. Vegetatively growing and starving cells displayed significantly different protein synthesis patterns (monitored by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis) but, when glutamine was added, it changed the protein synthesis pattern of starving cells to a form typical of vegetatively growing cells. Glutamine withdrawal reversed the effect and the cells differentiated. Pyrimidine analogues and inorganic phosphate did not alter the protein synthesis patterns of starving cells in the presence and absence of glutamine. The conclusion is that glutamine inhibition of sporangial development may be linked to its ability to subvert starving cell metabolism by making it vegetative like.