In silico analysis of promoter region and regulatory elements of mitogenome co-expressed trn gene clusters encoding for bio-pesticide in entomopathogenic fungus, Metarhizium anisopliae: strain ME1.

backgroundPest control strategies almost entirely rely on chemical insecticides, which cause environmental problems such as biosphere deterioration and emergence of resistant pests. Bio-pesticide is an alternative approach, which uses organisms such as entomopathogenic fungi, Metarhizium anisopliae, to control pests. Screening such potential organism at a molecular level and understanding their gene regulation mechanism is an important approach to reduce emergence of pesticide resistance and worsening of the biosphere. Understanding promoter regions which play a pivotal role in gene regulation is crucial. In particular, identification of the promoter regions in M. anisopliae Strain ME1 remains poorly understood. To our knowledge, the mitogenome trn gene clusters of M. anisopliae Strain ME1 were not characterized. Here, we used machine learning approach to identify and characterize the promoter regions, regulatory elements, and CpG island densities of 15 protein coding genes of entomopathogenic fungi, M. anisolpliae Strain ME1.

resultsThe current analysis revealed multiple transcription start sites (TSS) for all utilized sequences, except for promoter region genes of Pro-cob and Pro-nad5. With reference to the start codon (ATG), 85.3% of TSS was located above - 500 bp. Based on the standard predictive score at cut off value of 0.8

conclusionIdentified common candidate motifs and binding transcription factors through in silico approach are likely expected to contribute for better understanding of gene expression and strain improvement of M. anisopliae Strain ME1 for its bio-pesticides role.