Two distinct domains of Flo8 activator mediates its role in transcriptional activation and the physical interaction with Mss11

Flo8 is a transcriptional activator essential for the inducible expression of a set of target genes such as STA1, FLO11, and FLO1 encoding an extracellular glucoamylase and two cell surface proteins, respectively. However, the molecular mechanism of Flo8-mediated transcriptional activation remains largely elusive. By generating serial deletion constructs, we revealed here that a novel transcriptional activation domain on its extreme C-terminal region plays a crucial role in activating transcription. On the other hand, the N-terminal LisH motif of Flo8 appears to be required for its physical interaction with another transcriptional activator, Mss11, for their cooperative transcriptional regulation of the shared targets. Additionally, GST pull-down experiments uncovered that Flo8 and Mss11 can directly form either a heterodimer or a homodimer capable of binding to DNA, and we also showed that this formed complex of two activators interacts functionally and physically with the Swi/Snf complex. Collectively, our findings provide valuable clues for understanding the molecular mechanism of Flo8-mediated transcriptional control of multiple targets.