Using Neurospora to demonstrate the unidirectional nature of fungal mating.

Different fungi have been used to demonstrate mating in fungi including Neurospora (Griffiths, 1979), Aspergillus (Denison, 2000), and Sordaria (Fields, 1970) and kits for demonstrating mating in Sordaria are available from Carolina Biological, Inc. The present demonstration allows students to see both that fungi have different mating types and that one strain acts as the female parent. It takes advantage of the rapidity of Neurospora growth and the ease of using fluffy strains (Table 1). Strains carrying the fluffy lesion are mated with fl per-1 strains and the pattern of perethecial color on the resulting plates shows which strain was the female parent

Perspectives on genetic resources at the Fungal Genetics Stock Center.

The Fungal Genetics Stock Center has been banking and distributing resources for work with genetically characterized fungi since 1960. While most of the collection consists of strains of Neurospora, an NIH model filamentous fungus, the past fifteen years has seen the collection expand to include plant and human pathogenic fungi. The use of the resources in the collection has grown over the last 10 years as well, reflecting both a growth in research using standardized materials as well as the development of new materials through molecular genetic technology. This growth is not limited to newly deposited materials, however, and includes renewed interest in particular classes of strains with characteristics that were not recognized when they were originally deposited. One significant example is the use of strains carrying the osmotic-2 lesion in Neurospora crassa. This, and other utilization trends, underscores the need to provide strong support to the continued and expanded biobanking effort in the US

Fungal Genetics Stock Center Catalogue of Strains

Catalogue of Strains, 11th edition, 2006, supplement to Fungal Genetics Newsletter No. 53. This catalogue contains lists of materials held by the Fungal Genetics Stock Center

Fungal Genetics Stock Center Catalogue of Strains, 10th Edition

Catalogue of Strains, 10th edition, 2004, supplement to Fungal Genetics Newsletter No. 51. This catalogue contains lists of materials held by the Fungal Genetics Stock Center

Fungal Genetics Stock Center Catalogue of Strains, 9th edition

Catalogue of Strains, 9th edition, 2002, supplement to Fungal Genetics Newsletter No. 49. This catalogue contains lists of materials held by the Fungal Genetics Stock Center

Fantastic growth as the FGSC turns 50

Comparative Medicine - OneHealth and Comparative Medicine Poster SessionFounded in 1960, the Fungal Genetics Stock Center enters it's fiftieth year of operation during a period of tremendous growth. The collection has more than doubled since moving to UMKC in 2004 and has added new materials that reach out beyond it's traditional constituency. Among these are deletion sets for Neurospora, Cryptococcus and Candida as well as molecular genetic tools for working with industrial fungi, model organisms, and plant and human pathogens. With distribution growing every year, the FGSC sends materials to scientists in over 35 countries every year; approximately half of our orders are from within the US. In addition to being part of an NIH funded multi-institution Functional Genomics Program for Neurospora, the FGSC is involved in cutting edge genomics research with collaborators at the US DOE Joint Genome Institute. The FGSC and its staff are actively involved in national and international societies and ad hoc working groups fostering the development of collection resources in the US and around the world

Demonstration that the Neurospora crassa mutation un-4 is a single nucleotide change in the tim16 gene encoding a subunit of the mitochondrial inner membrane translocase

The Neurospora crassa temperature sensitive mutation known as un-4 has been shown by a map-based complementation approach to be a single nucleotide change in the open reading frame of the mitochondrial inner membrane translocase subunit tim16 (NCU05515)

The effect of repeated freeze-thaw cycles on cryopreserved Neurospora crassa samples.

To better characterize handling parameters for the arrayed mutants prepared for the Neurospora functional genomics program, we have put 7 day old conidia from strain FGSC 2489 through a series of cycles of freezing at -80 C in 25% glycerol and 3.5% reconstituted non-fat dry milk

Analysis of the DNA sequence of the putative ABC transporter NCU09975 in Neurospora crassa strains carrying acriflavin resistance markers.

Genomic DNA sequence was determined for the putative Neurospora crassa ABC transporter NCU09975 from several different classical mutant strains including several acriflavin resistant mutants. The sensitivity of these strains to acriflavin was tested. While the open reading frame NCU09975 has multiple polymorphisms in strains sequenced for other purposes, none of the acriflavin resistant classical mutants tested had polymorphisms in the NCU09975 coding region or in the 195 bases upstream of the translation start site