Homologs of the aflatoxin biosynthetic gene ver-1 in strains of Aspergillus oryzae and related species☆

Abstract Partial nucleotide sequences of two ver-1 homologs in Aspergillus parasiticus SYS-4 were analyzed. One of the homologs appeared to have a termination codon at amino acid position 87 and seems to be a non-functional pseudogene. Comparison of the nucleotide sequence between the another ver-1 homolog of SYS-4 and ver-1 of A. parasiticus NRRL 5862 led to identification of a frameshift within an exon; thus a part of amino acid sequences for the ver-1 homolog of SYS-4 and ver-1 of NRRL 5862 seems to differ greatly. With the ver-1 region of SYS-4 as a probe, DNA homologous to ver-1 was detected in some strains of Aspergillus oryzae and Aspergillus sojae , which are non-aflatoxin-producers, in addition to strains of Aspergillus flavus and A. parasiticus .