Transcriptome Analysis of Two Strains of <i>Aspergillus oryzae</i> with Different Responses to Light

Abstract

The production process of such traditional Japanese fermented foods as miso, shoyu and sake using Aspergillus oryzae has been highly optimized over a long history. However, new technology is needed to achieve further improvements in productivity or production efficiency. Light affects the gene expression and metabolic pathways of fungi. Thus, the development of technology that takes advantage of the light response of A. oryzae is important. In a previous study, we found that A. oryzae strains RIB40 and RIB1187 showed opposing manners of growth and conidiation in response to light. To elucidate the effect of light on genome-wide gene expression for both strains, we conducted transcriptome analysis by RNA sequencing. We also identified 453 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between both strains by bioinformatic analysis. Of these 453 DEGs, we identified a total of 67 light-responsive DEGs between RIB40 and RIB1187. We also analyzed the expression patterns of fermentation-related digestive enzyme genes.