Abstract
An in silico approach was used to investigate cytochrome c and the cytochrome c gene of Phanerochaete chrysosporium. The cytochrome c gene contains four introns. Omission of the introns reveals a DNA sequence coding for a complete predicted amino acid sequence for P. chrysosporium cytochrome c consistent with those of other cytochromes c. Fungal cytochromes c often have a short N-terminal peptide preceding a Gly that is the N-terminal amino acid in many cytochromes c. Thus a microexon codes for an N-terminal pentapeptide (MetProTyrAlaPro) in P. chrysosporium that is identical to the N-terminal pentapeptide of Schizosaccharomyces pombe, a well studied yeast, the genome of which bears more similarity to higher eukaryotes than to other fungi. The fourth intron, when omitted, reveals the presence of another microexon resulting in a sequence for the C-terminal portion of the protein and the stop codon. Interestingly, two interpretations for the sequence of this intron leads to predictions that the C-terminal sequence ends with either AlaValAsn or AlaTyr. Selected aspects of the molecular architecture of cytochrome c and regulatory control elements of the P. chrysosporium cytochrome c gene were analyzed and compared to those present in other fungi and to those present in genes for lignin peroxidases and cytochromes P-450, two important families of hemeproteins produced by this fungus.