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Neurospora crassa

 
Neurospora Crassa

 
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Neurospora crassa
 
 
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Neurospora crassa is a type of red bread mold of the phylum Ascomycota
Ascomycota

The Ascomycota are a Phylum of the kingdom Fungi, and subkingdom Dikarya, whose members are commonly known as the Sac Fungi. They are the largest phylum of Fungi, with over 30,000 species....
. The genus name, meaning "nerve spore" refers to the characteristic striations on the spore
Spore

In biology, a spore is a reproduction structure that is adapted for biological dispersal and surviving for extended periods of time in unfavorable conditions....
s.

N. crassa is used as a model organism
Model organism

A model organism is a species that is extensively studied to understand particular biology phenomena, with the expectation that discoveries made in the organism model will provide insight into the workings of other organisms....
 because it is easy to grow and has a haploid life cycle that makes genetic
Genetics

Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of heredity and Genetic variation in living organisms. The fact that living things inherit traits from their parents has been used since prehistoric times to improve crop plants and animals through selective breeding....
 analysis simple since recessive traits will show up in the offspring. Analysis of genetic recombination is facilitated by the ordered arrangement of the products of meiosis in Neurospora ascospores.






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Neurospora crassa is a type of red bread mold of the phylum Ascomycota
Ascomycota

The Ascomycota are a Phylum of the kingdom Fungi, and subkingdom Dikarya, whose members are commonly known as the Sac Fungi. They are the largest phylum of Fungi, with over 30,000 species....
. The genus name, meaning "nerve spore" refers to the characteristic striations on the spore
Spore

In biology, a spore is a reproduction structure that is adapted for biological dispersal and surviving for extended periods of time in unfavorable conditions....
s.

N. crassa is used as a model organism
Model organism

A model organism is a species that is extensively studied to understand particular biology phenomena, with the expectation that discoveries made in the organism model will provide insight into the workings of other organisms....
 because it is easy to grow and has a haploid life cycle that makes genetic
Genetics

Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of heredity and Genetic variation in living organisms. The fact that living things inherit traits from their parents has been used since prehistoric times to improve crop plants and animals through selective breeding....
 analysis simple since recessive traits will show up in the offspring. Analysis of genetic recombination is facilitated by the ordered arrangement of the products of meiosis in Neurospora ascospores. Its entire genome
Genome

In classical genetics, the genome of a diploid organism including eukarya refers to a full set of chromosomes or genes in a gamete; thereby, a regular somatic cell contains two full sets of genomes....
 of seven chromosomes has been sequenced.

Neurospora was used by Edward Tatum and George Wells Beadle
George Wells Beadle

George Wells Beadle was an United States scientist in the field of genetics, and Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Nobel laureate who with Edward Lawrie Tatum discovered the role of genes in regulating biochemical events within cells....
 in their experiments for which they won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded once a year by the Swedish Karolinska Institutet. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and Physiology or Medic...
 in 1958. Beadle and Tatum exposed N. crassa to x-rays, causing mutations. They then observed failures in metabolic pathway
Metabolic pathway

In biochemistry, a metabolic pathway is a series of chemistry reactions occurring within a cell . In each pathway, a principal chemical is modified by chemical reactions....
s caused by errors in specific enzyme
Enzyme

Enzymes are biomolecules that catalysis chemical reactions. Almost all enzymes are proteins. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process are called Substrate , and the enzyme converts them into different molecules, the products....
s. This led them to propose the "one gene, one enzyme" hypothesis that specific gene
Gene

A gene is the basic unit of heredity in a living organism. All living things depend on genes. Genes hold the information to build and maintain their cell and pass genetic trait to offspring....
s code for specific protein
Protein

Proteins are organic compounds made of amino acids arranged in a linear chain and joined together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of adjacent amino acid Residue ....
s. Their hypothesis was later elaborated to enzyme pathways by Norman Horowitz
Norman Horowitz (geneticist)

Norman Harold Horowitz was a Jewish American geneticist at California Institute of Technology who achieved national fame as the scientist who devised experiments to determine whether life might exist on Mars....
, also working in Neurospora.

In the 24 April 2003 issue of Nature
Nature (journal)

Nature is a prominent scientific journal, first published on 4 November 1869. Although most scientific journals are now highly specialized, Nature is one of the few journals, along with other weekly journals such as Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that still publishes original research articles ac...
, the genome
Genome

In classical genetics, the genome of a diploid organism including eukarya refers to a full set of chromosomes or genes in a gamete; thereby, a regular somatic cell contains two full sets of genomes....
 of N. crassa was reported as completely sequenced
DNA sequencing

The term DNA sequencing refers to methods for determining the order of the nucleotide bases, adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine, in a molecule of DNA....
. The genome is about 43 megabases long and includes approximately 10,000 genes. There is a project underway to produce strains containing knockout
Gene knockout

A gene knockout is a genetics technique in which an organism is genetic engineering to carry genes that have been made inoperative . This is done for research purposes....
 mutants of every N. crassa gene.

In its natural environment, N. crassa lives mainly in tropical and sub-tropical regions. It can be found growing on dead plant matter after fires.

Neurospora is actively used in research around the world. It is important in the elucidation of molecular events involved in circadian rhythms, epigenetics and gene silencing, cell polarity, development, as well as many aspects of cell biology and biochemistry.

Strains and other materials for working with Neurospora are available from the

Taxonomy

Morphology

See also

  • George Beadle
  • Norman Horowitz
    Norman Horowitz (geneticist)

    Norman Harold Horowitz was a Jewish American geneticist at California Institute of Technology who achieved national fame as the scientist who devised experiments to determine whether life might exist on Mars....
  • Robert Metzenberg
    Robert Metzenberg

    Robert L. Metzenberg was a United States genetics known for his work on genetic regulation and metabolism with Neurospora crassa....
  • David Perkins
    David Perkins (geneticist)

    David Dexter Perkins was an American geneticist, a member of the faculty of Stanford University for more than 58 years, from 1948 until his death in 2007....
  • Edward Tatum
  • Charles Yanofsky
    Charles Yanofsky

    Charles Yanofsky is a leading American genetics.Born in New York, Yanofsky studied at the City College of New York and at Yale University.In 1964, Yanofsky and colleagues established that gene sequences and protein sequences are colinear: changes in DNA sequence can produce changes in protein sequence at corresponding positions....


External links



  • Neurospora crassa genome